So, that graft will look better as it grows, right? ;)

ColinFraser

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I cracked up the other day when I saw this LiquidAmber outside the meeting place of my local bonsai club. These are frequently in nurseries around here as grafted cultivars that produce reliable fall color, even with our mild climate. That appeals to me, but I always worry about the grafts - here's a good example of why! The rootstock is clearly a bit more vigorous than the rest of the tree and has ballooned into what I see as a grotesquely 'muscular', almost nebari-ish, but not attractive base - with a telephone pole sticking out of the middle of it!
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The suckers have a completely different leaf shape from the canopy, so I'm certain it's a graft. I just thought it would be fun to share. I sometimes try to convince myself that a fatal flaw in a prospective acquisition isn't really so bad. Seeing things like this reminds me that no amount of time and growth can fix some things ;)
 

Walter Pall

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Grafts that don't look good ALWAYS get worse in time. It is simply the genetics. The different parts have genetically different growth habits. This will never change. So if one grows stonger than the otjer it will be exactly so in the future. It will get uglier all the time.
 

ColinFraser

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Grafts that don't look good ALWAYS get worse in time. It is simply the genetics. The different parts have genetically different growth habits. This will never change. So if one grows stonger than the otjer it will be exactly so in the future. It will get uglier all the time.
Exactly! I think it is fun and instructive to point out examples of that.

Edit: By the way, I'm a big fan of your work; it's great to see you're checking in on the forum from time to time. Thanks.
 

ColinFraser

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I thought of this thread while driving by a walnut orchard the other day:

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Hahahah, pretty bad, at least aesthetically. In California, growers graft English Walnut onto native Black Walnut rootstock for superior disease resistance and tolerance to local conditions - makes for great walnut production, but also comical looking trees!
 

hemmy

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Skinny waist! From the leaves and few seed pods, I’m guessing a beech, Fagus sp.

But this pic is only a few days old, so it still has fall leaves with no spring growth. I don’t know what is going on with the fresh dirt at base. Maybe it is trying to walk away.

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