Congratulations on your grafting success! Four out of ten ain't bad for the first try.

Do you know if the plant you removed cuttings from was a particular cultivar or a species plant? In any case, there could be a number of environmental reasons why the mother plant was growing slowly relating to its siting (amount of sun, soil factors, nutritional status) which would then be alleviated when the plant material was grafted.

Indeed, it's not uncommon for a dwarf plant, when grafted, to show increased growth due to the influence of the more vigorous rootstock. Oftentimes, after several years the growth will drop back to that seen for the mother plant as the new tree matures. However, this is dependent on the genetics of the plant in question and is not guaranteed.

I know what you mean, it would be great if there dwarf pine rootstock available to properly match the vigor of the rootstock with the mother tree. However, there is nothing like this commercially available.

Plant them out and see what happens. You may be pleasantly surprised.

-Alex

are we to presume you properly IDd the scion plant.. and matched the understock accordingly??? .. not all pine goes on any old pine stock ...

there are peeps who might be able to ID the mother plant .... if you can get a good pic.. perhaps in spring ...

gary .. you really havent given us many facts.. nor pix ...

but i am wondering why your scion has already doubled in size ... alex ought to address how he keeps his grafts rather cool.. giving them significant time for the graft to callous over BEFORE the scion starts expanding... else they might fall off

ken

Thanks for the comments.To clarify I have been grafting blue spruces for two years now with around a third of them successfully taking.When they pushed however the scions growth was the same in size and appearance as the mother plant.This is my first attempt at pines.I did some research and discovered pines come with either 2,3or 5 needles and scions must be coupled with matching understocks in this respect,ie 2 needle scion with 2 needle rootstock.This I did.When they pushed tho the growth was unlike the mother plant in that the needles were much longer.The mother plants needles were an inch long,the rootstock needles were about 3 inches long and the scion is pushing out needles about 2 inches long.So twice the size of the mother plant.Will just have to wait and see if it reverts back I guess.

The pines are on the left.The scion on the second one back hasn't pushed properly and still looks like the mother plant with short needles.The others are pushing much longer needles more like the rootstock size.Do you see what I mean?

gary , you said you looked for the same plant as your neighbor,,,just curious,,,it must have been a named plant (or did you just wander around looking for same ) ha

what's it's name ?

ron

ps. where do you live that you have plants pushing ?

the other day ,I was slogging around yard , skooping snow off small plants so they get some sun.

they've been covered with snow since the super bowl

Hi Ron.I don't know the plants name.Either there was no label or it was removed when planting.I am a keen gardener though and could tell this plant was different from other dwarf pines I've seen.You don't see many dwarf pines for sale around my way anyway.If garden centres do stock them they are snapped up straight away with long periods before the next batch comes in.Normaly they are mugo pines with lazy spreading branches.This one I like is much more compact with tight sprays of shiny dark green needles.Very attractive.Ive had some success before with dwarf pine cuttings by semi air layering them first.I remove a collar of bark on 2 or 3 year old wood at the beginning of the growing season on the mother plant.This then produces a 'bulb' of callus tissue at the uppermost part of the collar.In mid august while it's still warm here I cut below the bulb,trim down the leaf growth to a five inch cutting size and stick it in a pot.These normaly root in about a month or so.This trick did not work however with this particular plant so I was left with no option but to graft.Now even that seems to have failed as I have produced a much larger plant with longer needles it seems.

I joined this garden forum years ago for another question I had but then I forgot all about this site.I received an email recently to ask me to re-affirm my membership here so being reminded about this site I thought I'd put my question to you all now.My plants are not pushing right now of course,I live in Torquay,Devon,UK.Im not sure what zone that is but I'd be interested to know : )

Just to add I do think the plant is a named cultivar grafted onto a rootstock but which one I have no idea.I'll get a decent photo of the mother plant when I can.It currently stands about a foot and a half tall and is tight and bushy in shape.

That's good news then.That would mean I've got four lovely little dwarf pines to plant out.I hope your right.I'll persevere with them and see what happens-thanks.