You can graft a feshly bought bare-rooted tree. You will just have to take out more than 4/5 of the original stems and then graft over them. By removing more than 80% of the existing stems, this gives enough balance for roots to support your grafts.
This is my new 5-n-1 cherry tree. Next year, it will have more. This is how some trees get started in my yard. I got them on the cheap from big box stores, prune severly and graft over them. So I love to select bare rooted fruit trees with nice branches. See how they are sprouting already? Some will even bear fruits the year they are grafted and doesn't seem to slow them down.
By
joereal at 2008-03-18