I just bought a stone fruit cocktail tree at Home Depot today. It contains two peaches, an apricot, plum and nectarine. Its about 6 1/2 feet tall. Its in a 7 gallon pot.

Since I live in a condo with no yard, I must keep it in a pot on my deck. What's the best way to maintain this tree? When should I transplant it to a larger pot? How big of a pot? What type of soil? Is the bagged tree & shrub soil from Home Depot good?

Can cherries be grafted onto this tree?

Any advice would be appreciated. Thanks.

Buy Krymsk 5 rootstock and use it as interstem. Graft the Krymsk 5 rootstock unto the European plum, then next season graft all the cherries you want unto the Krymsk 5 branch.

You will have to buy Krymsk 5 because it is patented. The rootstocks are about $3 each from Rain Tree Nursery http://www.raintreenursery.com/

They are not available at the moment, but they usually ready for ordering in winter and they ship it in spring.

Here is a picture of my 5in1 stone fruit tree. Are those two branches off to the left side water sprouts or suckers? Or are they regular branches that will eventually fruit? They are coming off of the Babcock peach branch and not the root stock. Can they be grafted onto?

That looks like a rootstock sprout--yes it can be grafted.

I'd like to start grafting to this tree. Is now a good time?

Is when the tree dormant the best time to graft? I've seen youtube videos of apple, not peach, tree grafting during dormancy. They don't use parafilm tape and leave the rest of the branch unwrapped. I guess when its dormant you don't need to worry about the bud stick from drying out.

When I snap some of the twigs on the branches where the leaves have fallen off, its brown inside, not green. Are these still good to graft to? I know, if successful they will not sprout until next spring. I just want to know if now is a good time, during dormancy.

I usually cleft graft stone fruits later, like January, but we have relatively mild weather here then. I don't have 100% success so I'd be interested to hear what other people do.