Has anyone had success with grafting?

[SarahAndQuack]

I'm looking to get into this and though there are masses of good resources on the net, I've not been able to find any good courses locally (there are rather twee-looking 'come and do a day with us, have a glass of prosecco and take home a grafted apple tree' kind of things, but what I really want is someone who'll show me carefully and watch me do it lots of times until I get it right!).

I'd love to know if anyone has done it, especially if you've taught yourself. And what methods?

I have done approach grafting, and that worked okay. This isn't the best time of year to do it though.

Anything in particular you are wanting to graft?

I don't think I am familiar with approach grafting, or maybe it's another name for something I have read about. How do you do it?

I know it's the wrong time of year - I'm just trying to learn as much as I can. I'm going to try various fruit trees and sorbus.

Yes my first apple tree graft is in my old house producing apples.

If you have fruit trees, then you can practice by using the tree's own scions and just grafting them on. I learnt on a half day course, sometimes that's just the way you have to do it. If you have friends with fruit trees or anyone in the area, ask for a few scions when they prune it in January and give it a go. You tube is a great resource for this sort of thing.

The main thing once you have learnt the technique is to know what can be grafted onto what.

Oh, wow, how lovely @AlisonDonut! Did you find it difficult to learn, and did you have failures early on?

I don't have sufficiently mature trees to practice on myself (I'm doing it for work). I have been watching and re-watching on youtube! And I think I am getting the hang of what grafts onto what. I think I just feel I don't know what I don't know (if that makes sense).