I obtained scions from the scion exchange in Portland. My apple, pear, and cherry grafts have had pretty good success, but my 30 plum grafts have not changed at all. I have grafted both European and Japanese plum scions on a standard plum tree. Does anyone have any ideas? They all look dormant.
Dave T.
Dave, you say: “I have grafted both European and Japanese plum scions on a standard plum tree.â€
You grafted all those plum scions onto one tree? If so, what graft did you use; ie: cleft graft, whip & tongue graft, or bark grafts? When did you make these grafts? How old is the existing plum tree? I’ll suspect you made ‘cleft grafts.’ Could you have missed the cambial layer..? And none of the 30 scions took?
Sorry about all the Q’s but it’s just a guess otherwise 
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I grafted all 30 grafts on a large mature spreading plum tree using whip and tongue grafts. I finished the grafts about a week after the scion exchange. I tried to match the cambion layers, but not sure. They looked good. Many of the grafts still look viable, but I'm not seeing any new growth. I don't know how long to wait. Two years ago I got a couple of Beauty plums and an AuProducer plum to take on this tree and last summer I bud grafted a Shiro plum, a Brooks plum and another Beauty plum successfully. I appreciate your help.
Dave T
McMinnville, OR
Dave,
You must be grafting very close to the ends of branches to have put that many scions on one tree. Otherwise you’d have to be making bark grafts into the thicker bark nearer the base of the trunk – which can’t be done until the sap flows. Sounds like your most successful grafts were bud grafts; those need very thin bark. I envision grafts being made on former ‘water suckers’ at the top of limbs. They’d have the thinner bark or smaller diameters for both budding and whip & tongue grafts.
If you’re deeper inside the canopy of a mature tree it’s dark and there’s less sap pull, or incentive for a scion to ‘take’ when the majority of sap draw is toward the bulk of the limb beyond it. And, newly grafted scions need nearly as much sunlight as a ‘stand alone’ fruit tree to flourish. Otherwise, as I learned years ago with my own, they may ‘take,’ but just sit there in the shade and do next to nothing…
…and if you’re grafting near the ends of branches, expect to lose those varieties with storm damage and accidental pruning. It’s best to establish new varieties as close to the main trunk as possible. Which, in the case of an older tree, can require the removal of a lot of material, allowing enough sunlight to feed the new growth. When establishing a multi-variety tree I go nuts in the early years, when limb size will equalize and sunlight is abundant. I go very easy on mature trees, unless top-working them over to an entirely different cultivar (variety).
Keep us posted 
Maybe I need to back up and try to identify what I'm grafting to. Research has led me to either a Mirabelle de Metz plum or a yellow cherry plum.
I'm not sure how to narrow it further. The plums are small, sweet, watery and clingstone. I removed most of the center tree overhead a few years ago (out of reach). Now I'm trying to graft scions to both water sprouts in the top of trunk and to branches off of main limbs. I've grafted Oullins, Seneca, Victoria, Brooks, Rosy Gage, Mirabelle de Nancy, and Early Laxton (European) and Howard Miracle, Shiro, Burbank, Beauty and Satsuma (Japanese) scions. I guess my questions is what the original tree is and if what I'm grafting to it is compatible? Appreciate your help.
Dave T.
McMinnville, OR
From the above I see somebody already made mention of what parts of a tree to graft for best takes. All the research I have ever done from reading books on the subject say to collect healthy scions and go to a healthy part of the stock where growth is most active. Like John S above I have many examples of growing plums and cherries in years of backyard experience. But I would have to say, if I grafted any prunus "whip and tongue" a week after the scion exchange, this year mine would have failed. I would have guessed it because of where we all live and I say so now because I'm now looking at unhealthy ungrafted plum branches withering in the dry sun in my yard in Vancouver WA.
If this was the other side of the mountains I would say high grated whip and tongues would work because there is less rain induced disease pressure over there and the temperatures might not be so cool at grafting time. Here it would make sense to do it much later in the season like now and choose from only the branch tips that are leafing as of now. Then in about three weeks from now if the buds are coming open I would start forcing and directing growth towards the scions by fertilizing or cutting parts of the old tree away.
The only bad thing in all this is if we get above 80F in the next week or so what this might do to the scion grafts.
Idyllwild
simplepress
jafar
Marsha H
Viron
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