Today in the orchard
John & Seth Yentes, Greenlawn Cemetery, Salem MA, March 4, 2025.
Another day of snow and rain - in fact it was the third day it had snowed this past week. I spent the day in the shop grafting crabapples with Alyssa Gavlik. I had collected the scionwood from the Greenlawn Cemetery in Salem MA, an arboretum cemetery with dozens of different tree species including an assortment of Malus (crabapples) that were planted in the early twentieth century. In early March Fedco grower Seth Yentes and I had stopped at the cemetary en route to the annual ‘Stump Sprouts’ apple growers’ conference. Unfortunately none of the crabapples are identified since whatever records there were of the plantings have been lost. In the coming months the cemetery folks will have them all DNA profiled in hopes of identifying as many as possible.
We grafted three trees of each specimen. In May I’ll plant out the small trees in our nursery where they will live for the next 2 years. It will be interesting to watch the young trees as they grow to see their form and foliage. I suspect that because they are all ornamental crabs, we’ll find some interesting things. Crab genetics tend to be much more varied than those of the common domestic grocery-store apples. I know at least one will be red-leafed and red-flowered since the wood was red inside. For a new grafter like Alyssa, grafting trees hour after hour is the perfect way to build grafting skills.
