Talking about grafting and gardening, Where I am living at the moment, I have never seen so much mistle toe growing in all my life, it's on every tree in maybe 4 places on each tree, Tons of the stuff

In our old garden in the UK I always wanted to grow it, and tried everything I could for 20 odd years, but without luck. It finally took, but within 6 months of that, those particular trees had to come down.

Yeah, if you have a small garden, it's the way to go. I saw a clip of one guy with a grafted apple tree that had 25 varieties on it.

How did you try and grow it mate?

I tried pressing the contents of the berry into a crevice, as that seemed the most sensible, with some just on the smooth bark, and I also used to try piercing the bark with a small hole so that the seed would sit in that with the hope that the protrusions that the seed produces would be able to insert into the bark from the inside. I had observed from one of my failures that those protrusions form pads at the ends, rather like the pads at the end of virginia creeper tendrils, and then those pads adhere to the bark like suckers, with the bark then being penetrated at the junction.

All those on the flat bark (apple trees) couldn't adhere and would dry up and fall off. I can't remember for the life of me which technique achieved any success.

I doubt I will grow any in Spain, but out of sheer curiosity, what's the correct technique?

Come to thinmk of it, I have planted apple trees. Do you think it would work out in Spain?

I have grown it in apple trees with quite a lot of success, I tend to put them in some warm water until the seeds begin to break up then I find a crevice somewhere and just slosh it on.

Bugger. I was hoping you were going to come out with some secret trick. The seeds used to look as tho had they been held tightly to the bark they would have adhered successfully.

Another question here. When we bought the place, I planted some 20, 25 mandarins and clems. I figured some would be crap, and then I would rip them out and plant something better.

5 years on, they are all coming out or being used as root stock. EVERY SINGLE ONE was tasteless, flavourless and about as enjoyable as drinking very, very watery fruit squash.

No can anyone tell me what the point is in creating cultivars like that?

The joke is we have one tree that was there when we bought, and that tree is sensational, so I am now grafting it onto ever piece of rootstock I have in the hope that some will take.

You need to find a slightly exposed crevice mate, they take quickly on exposed cambium.

Well I have had a sleep and it's turned into a gardening thread

Stroke of genius innit.

That's why I used to bore a small hole and put them into that hoping that the glue in the berry would seal out rot etc.

My boss said I've learnt more in 14 months at the company than the jefe de taller has in 40 years and thinks I'm a genius........does this count?

; That depends on how much you persuaded him to pay you!

Genius is a little bit of inspiration with a lot of hard work. Either people aren't even inspired a little bit or they are VERY lazy