You need to plant the pink lady apple tree, say around 20 feet from another apple, if you mom grafts your tree on a semi-dwarf rootstock. Spacing will be determined on what kind of rootstock she uses. The tree will still need cross pollination of the other apple trees to make fruit. The tree will still make pink lady apples but the seed that it produces will be a pink lady and what ever happens to pollinate it cross. Most varaties of fruit need cross pollination.

There's a lot more to it than I thought. I planned on buying a few Pink Lady trees from a producer so maybe she plans to use those for "rootstock"? That is what I assumed but I'm not positive. She's on vacation so I don't know what she has in mind. She has never done it (grafting) but she watched my father so I feel that we do need to educate ourselves about it. Am I correct that she will use the purchased trees as rootstock? And we'll plant those near the grafted tree? But then those purchased trees won't also need grafting? Or they already have been?

Thanks for your help!

For more information on rootstocks you could google CENTURY FARM ORCHARDS website and check out the rootstock section on their web page. They are very nice and know alot about apples. Apple trees you buy in the store are already grated to rootstock, you can see the graft line about an inch or two above the soil in the pot where the two were connected. The reason they graft trees on to rootstocks is to maintain a desired height and size of the tree and keep the scion wood(the pink lady in your case) true to the oringinal tree. You could grow an apple from seed but you would have no idea what kind of tree would grow from that seed, so this is the reason for grafting trees.