I mail-ordered apple and pear rootstocks but they are a bit small compared to some of my scionwood. Any suggestions on how to graft them, or should I try to find better-sized rootstocks?

I ended up purchasing new MM106 apple rootstock for the larger scions, and Pyrus betulifolia for the remaining sections of pear scionwood that I still have to graft. Might as well do it right! I don't have a whole lot of experience in this, so my worry now is just doing bench grafting this late in the season. I do have quite a few grafted trees already growing, and some seem to be starting to bud out. Whatever happens, I'm learning a lot.

Looks like I was one day too late, but FWIW in situations where the scion is larger than the rootstock you can still bench graft the two in all but extreme cases. In doing this try to get a good cambium match on one side of the graft which will make the other side noticeably off. They say it only takes one cell from the scion and stock to match for the graft to take. I have had good success focusing on matching cambium on one rather than both sides of bench grafts.

No worries about bench grafting this late in the season, last year we didn't finish until the end of May. I have also been told that the best time to graft is when you have a scion and a stock, so give it a try and if it fails you can always bud the stock in the summer or re-graft it next winter.

Galen
Portland, OR

Thanks, I'll keep that in mind. I already have some grafts from earlier this year starting to bud out. Karmijn de Sonneville is definitely budding out. I'm still waiting on most of the others.

Sorry about the late reply, but it is easy enough to match up large scions with smallish stocks. Just make your cuts the same size and all will fit. Only it will look ugly cuz of the huge scion, but nature over the years (maybe 5 years) will even all this out and you cannot tell after that. But it does work.