Nice ! .....good luck with all of those beauties !

PS. I'm a bit surprised that you're planting such small grafts -- I thought you'd grow them in pots for a few years first ?

Dax, I hope you have some kids to turn this piece of gold over too!

When your 80 you won't care how large they are. By then the ocean will be lapping at your front drive according to all the global warming naysayers.

Nice looking grafts.

Going to cage them?

Dave

I've had extremely great success with 1 and 2 year grafts planted right away; I see no need to pot them up and store them in a hoophouse. My 10 cents.

Will, I have one nephew who's a young kid seven years old & I hope he likes me enough as I'm the next youngest to him to allow me to stay at home when I'm an old man. For all I know I'll living in a small shack on the property which is fine by me just so long as I am able to enjoy this collection to my final days. I also have a sister eight years older & I doubt I'll live as long as she does anyway, but hopefully she'll keep the younger nephew in line that Dax has an extremely rare but also beautiful piece of land to enjoy. I hope it stays in the family.

Caging tomorrow. Only 42 years to go until I'm 80.

Dax

Picea pungens W.B. seedlings of Jerry Morris seed:

Dax

Hi Dax! At this rate and assuming your life-expectancy estimate is correct,you could get another 61152 grafts planted. But you must be prepared to work nightshifts...

Planting for posterity... noble gardening indeed! T.

They all look great Dax. Love to see follow up photos in a couple years.
Cher

Those Picea pungens W.B. seedlings of Jerry Morris seed. Like setting on a gold mine.

I couldn't talk you out of one of them....could I?

Dave

Sure, I'll send you one.

Dax

Some nice clay work there! Appreciate the broom seedlings too.

Hah, Dax is a mad-scientist for sure. Planting dwarves and miniatures twelve feet apart! Dontcha know we're all goners in 2012! :)

Don't run out of space, I have a few scions to send your way still.

-Will

Matter of fact my birthday is Dec.21~ whooo scary

Dax

Thanks for the pix, Dax. Will those little guys be safe when your driveway is plowed of slushy snow?

tj

Sure they will. They'll spring back if need be. I'm going to stake them too though. On the other side in 07 I planted 1-year rooted Hetz Wintergreen's that are all alive except one that died from the droughts this summer. Those you can see in the photos as well.

Dax

Any follow up pictures on these grafts? :)

Those two droughts of last summer and the year prior killed many of them. Picea pungens 'Blue Stop Light' had a very weak root system after I took it from its pot. I was concerned about that one right away.

This winter I lost 'Burl'. I was shocked.

Picea engelmannii 'Lucky Charm' and Picea pungens 'Woodstock' didn't make it thru their first summer.

Pinus pseudopumilio 'Maja'. Part of the pseudopumilio San Sebastian series. Not uncinata.

Pinus mugo 'Viki'
lost the middle of the plant this winter. This will fill in just fine.

Pinus mugo 'Mops Midget'
this is a great selection of mugo fyi

Picea pungens 'Wendy'
I must of added this in 2012. From Bob Fincham.

Pinus strobus 'Puffer Ball'

Picea glauca 'Burning Well'

Dax

Dax,

Wow your grafts look amazing. How did you learn to do this? What a cool thing to be able to do. I have never tried this but would like to try it sometime.

I'll have to find some grafting resources and do some reading.

Thanks

TYG

Nice to see the update on these Dax. Considering the drought last year it could have been worse on them so it's nice to see that the largest part of them survived. Adding Wendy is a plus. That is one of my very favorite conifers, but hated seeing the Stop Light lost. That looked lovely and I enjoyed the story on it. :)
Cher

yard guy & Cher, thank you.

yg: I was taught to graft from a number of people, however, all my fine tuning and last 5-years pretty well all came from Dennis Dodge, now deceased. I gained interest in grafting from browsing Coenosium Gardens website for many years & eventually began asking questions on here which led to direct emails to Bob @ Coenosium and continuing to other nurserymen I later encountered whom I was introduced to one to the next. I have several grafting videos on youtube. Just search:
Grafting Conifers
from that video you'll find my handle and can see all my other grafting videos.

Cher, I had some dandies, one of a kinds, & the only way to re-graft them is to drive to Woodstock, IL and collect the scions myself since my friend Rich Eyre stopped collecting scions years ago due to the heavy demand from 'all his friends'. That's where 'Woodstock', 'Seedling 402' and all the RM pungens came from. 'Blue Stop Light' came from Dennis Dodge and that'll be a difficult one to find again. engelmann 'Lucky Charm' came from Nate. I wonder if he has successful grafts of that broom which he found. That 'Uncle Stan' Picea abies also came from Rich Eyre. I've never seen it anywhere else. It's a great, blue, PA. 'Burl' too from Rich... exceptional!

Dax