Budding and grafting fruit trees is a useful and surprisingly straight-forward process. Discover the magic of adding new varieties to existing fruit trees or propagating your own trees to plant or share.

We feel extremely lucky to have Peter to host this hands-on workshop for us and hope that local gardeners can take away the skills they need to be able to propagate, grow, share and add to their own diverse range of fruit cultivars.

Participants will have expert instruction and the chance to practice grafting and budding techniques. If numbers allow, students may have the opportunity to leave with a grafted fruit tree of their own.

About the trainer: As a lecturer at Burnley Horticultural College (now part of Melbourne University) Peter taught propagation, among other subjects, and so many a Burnley graduate started their journey into grafting and budding in Peter’s classes. After finishing his PhD in agricultural science, Peter taught at the University of Melbourne – Burnley Campus for many years and finished his time there as Head of Campus. He is now almost fully retired although he still teaches occasionally and runs a small horticultural consultation business from home.

Peter has lived and gardened in Kyneton in Central Victoria since the early 1980s, firstly in an old rambling Victorian house and garden and more recently in a new, and better insulated, house with a smaller garden, the ornamental part of which was designed with the intent of relying solely on rainfall for irrigation. In addition to that garden area he also grows fruit, vegetables and grapevines.