Scion Exchange

The California Rare Fruit Growers held their annual scion exchange in San Francisco and I consider that a good enough reason to put up with Bay Bridge traffic to get over there. The number of fruit varieties represented in the piles of pruned wood at a scion exchange is a little staggering, but it's pretty fun to rifle through it all, searching for just what you need or for something new you didn't even know you want.

For just a $3 entry fee I was able to pick up nine scions from five different varieties: Black Tartian, Van, and Republican cherries; Santa Rosa plum; and Desert King fig. The cherry scions will all get grafted onto my dwarf Ranier cherry. The plum will be grafted onto a peach rootstock that I'd tried grafting onto last year in my class; the graft took at first, but then failed, so now I'll try again. The fig scion is not for grafting, but to try rooting.

My yard is small but I'd really love to see it filled with small fruit trees someday. These scion exchanges are a great opportunity to build my mini-orchard.