In Virginia the same orchard/supplier provides Lowes and Home Depot with their fruit trees. They have never been impressive and have a fairly small selection.
On the other hand Southern States and the local nurseries receive most of their fruit trees from Hollybrook Orchards, which is based in Virgina. While the rootstocks are not labeled they will return your emails (normally same day) with detailed information on what they use. My experience with Hollybrook trees has so far been good.
yea Hollybrook emailed me back locations they shipped espalier trees to in NJ. when my nursery failed to order or get the trees I requested they order.
Had to buy irrigation parts at Home Depot today. I looked at the fruit trees for fun, they had Q-1-8, Babcock, Improved Elberta peaches, others were labeled simply Plum, Blueberry, and Columnar Apple
Lowes does seem to have better quality plants, they also label the variety.
It is the opposite here. Loweās does have some decent stuff but it also has some stuff that is very unsuited to our climate (Sweet Cherries, Bartlett Pears, McIntosh apples).
Whereas Home Depot doesnāt even carry the Bartlett Pear, it carries Hood, FlordaHome, and Kieffer. For apples it carries Dorset Golden and Anna. Blueberries it carries the rabbiteye varieties Powderblue and Brightwell. Stuff like that. Not a lot of different varieties and not even necessarily the best overall varieties, but varieties that are very good for the home gardener that doesnāt know much about fruit tree growing.
There must be regional buyers and different nurseries that supply each area, so no hard and fast rule about which one (Lowes vs Home Depot) is better. It makes sense but I never thought about it before.
I will say I purchased a rabbiteye from Home Depot to replace one that had died. Besides being horribly rootbound (which I fixed as much as I could before planting in-ground) there was nothing wrong with the blueberry. A year later it is growing strong and looks healthy.
Lowes and HD in our area have great sales towards end of season. Last fall I bought Blue Crop and Elliot blue berry varieties one was $1 and the other $3. They are both doing great this spring. Also bought container raspberry called Strawberry short cake for $5. Itās doing well too.
A week or two ago I was eyeing a nice large Black Jack fig at HomeDepot. But, it was pricey ($50), so I figured that Iād wait for the end of season sale and see if they still had any.
Tonight, on my way into Whole foods, I noticed that they had fig plants too, many with 1-2 figs on them. Then, I saw a Celeste with 10 little figs. Iād been thinking about Celeste for a while, as it is supposed to be pretty well adapted, so I had to get it. Then, on the way out, I noticed another plant (LSU Purple) with another 10 figs. Back into the store I goā¦
$30 for 2 large (2 gal pot, thick stem) figs seems like a decent deal, especially for Whole Foods
I figure that for plants which may not survive the winter, I should start with one which has a chance of fruiting this year. The 3rd variety they had was Brown Turkey, but I think Iāve got one of those already, though it has never fruited in 5 years.
Choices:
Bob,
$30 for two healthy plants with fruit is a steal ( to me). Last week I was at a Farmersās Market in Northampton. I saw a 18" tall fig plant with a $30 price tag!!! (I canāt remember the variety but a common one.)
I have never seen figs or jujubes at any Loweās or Home Depot where I live. A new Whole Foods is going to open nearby. Maybe, it will sell fig trees.
These are about 24" tall and the caliper was 3/4" and 7/8"+. After I left, I was thinking that maybe I should have gotten another
This one varies what it offers- Iāve gotten alpine strawberries, Anne yellow raspberries, and Contender peach from it over the years. But it usually has little of interest, at least for plants. I got some tasty white apricots todayā¦
In Canada, Iāve never really bothered with HD or Lowes for my fruit trees. Iāve bought mostly multi-variety grafted combo trees at Canadian Tire (its our version of a BB store) and in general have been pleased with the accuracy of the labeling and the quality of the trees. My fruit combos have Frost Peach, Harko or Hardired Nectarine, Green Gage or Italian plum, and Puget Gold Apricots. The cherry combos Iāve gotten from them have a mix of Bing, Rainier, Van, Lapin, Stella, and Sam cherry varieties. Our family generally only eats Ambrosia (a relatively new BC variety) and Fuji so I buy those from smaller nurseries or my Burnaby fruit tree/fresh cherries guy. Iām also envious of your bare root fruit tree prices. The local nurseries usually sell their single variety trees for $49.99 to $59.99 and their combos for $20 to $40 more. At Canadian Tire, this year it was $39.99 for single variety (reg. price) and $59.99 for combos, although I bought mine when they had a 20% off fruit trees special. I had one combo tree that died, but I know the nursery lady at Canadian Tire and I had showed her the stick with zero roots on it a couple years ago. This year I mentioned it to her, she talked to her manager who remembered seeing the āstickā when I brought it in and they gave me a free combo tree replacement. Awesome customer service. Wouldnāt get that at one of the independent local nurseries.
In this zone in Canada our Canadian Tire store at least brings in varieties that winter here. The Rona brought in fruit trees that were for UrbanAggieās zone, not even close to what we can grow, and Costco is hit and miss.
I donāt mind most big box fruit trees but often they are not on hardy rootstock and die in the winter. I usually end up taking scions if the tree is not fully leafed, and graft it immediately on a nurse tree, or later in the summer I bud graft it. For our zone, rootstock is key, not too many big box stores pay attention to that.
These are very good, but I think I had better ones in the past. Maybe from Red Jacket farm? I have no idea what the cultivar is on these.
Planting them out is an interesting idea. My initial reaction is that I have enough trouble getting a full-sized tree to fruit before it dies, so I have no chance of getting a seedling to fruit. But, I suppose you could get lucky and find a better adapted apricot. May need to plant 4-5 thousand instead of 4-5 though
Did you cold stratify them and plant the next spring, or plant them right away? Cracking the pit first?
No. I just Jonny-Appleseed-it as I go and leave piles of seeds around the orchard. Iāve got a lot of unknowns growing, but these are just one I happen to have marked down. The problem is that I usually do this with the intent of using seeds as rootstock, then I see something come up and decide Iād better see what it grows into.
Yep. My hope here is that someone else planted out the other 4,995 and I just need those remaining few.
Last time I went to HD, there werenāt any more. But I happened to be passing through today and saw them back again (still half price at $25). Though the pots are very large, most of the remaining ones didnāt have any fruit on them. I found one with 2 little fruits, so I decided to give it a try.
Iāve had some a couple trees this year, so Iām thinking about putting it in their place for the year. Who knows if it will live past that, but at least digging the hole (for such a large pot- 5 gal?) will be easier in a place Iāve already planted a tree
Edit- it was a 7 gal pot, which was a decent amount of work to plant. I used the spot from my Hesse, which died with little notice. It joins an unknown multi-graft apple, and my North Star cherry in trees that have passed this year.
That is a winesap from either Loweās or walmart canāt remember at the moment. We got it on sale for I think ten dollars or less. If you catch these trees on sale and you have the room I think they are worth the risk.
Looks good. We also have a Winesap that we got from Loweās last year. It was about 5 feet tall when we planted it. Now itās over 8ft tall, and looks good. It didnāt bloom this year, but weāre hoping to get some fruit from it next year.
How old is your tree, and when did it start producing?
I also bought three of the Stayman Winesap from Home Depot for about ten dollars each. The trees were healthy looking and are growing well. I assume some risk when I buy from them. I have already grafted two of these over to other varieties. One thing is for sure, when they list the tree as dwarf that means it probably will be any size under M111 roots. Iām mostly pleased with my purchases from the big box stores and if they are not correctly marked a graft will take care of the problem.
I have a Winesap from Home Depot its grown well, but probably semi dwarf. This is my first year having a good crop, last year I got three. Iāll decide if itās worth keeping or graft over.
I have had bad experiences growing apple trees bought from big box stores. With one exception I have cut down everyone of them - they were all stunted and diseased in the end. I got out of growing fruit trees for about 6 years partially because of this experience.
The trees are not labeled with the rootstock - how do you know if you are getting mm106 which is very fire blight susceptible but grows quickly or mm110 which produces much later but is more fire blight resistant? It does matter. Most of the trees at Home Depot and Lowes in my area are not labeled with the nursery so there is zero chance to determine the rootstock.
The one exception is an apple tree that I bought at Walmart that was labeled āgreenā. It has produced every year and grows well. But again it is very susceptible to disease. I spray it religiously with immunox for about 6 weeks to avoid cedar apple rust and some fungus that makes the leaves look sooty - black. Buying disease resistant varieties on disease resistant rootstock has given me better results.
I have had some success stories with peaches from big box stores but even there I would be cautious. Lovell Bailey Halford and peach seedling all work in my area. Nemaguard should work but Nemaguard is not cold hardy and we do have years where we are on the edge of the cold hardy rating of Nemaguard (not less than 5F). I have two trees that come from nurseries that use Nemaguard, so I wonder if I will eventually loose them when we have a bad cold snap.
I have another tree that I think is on Citation but I have no way to know for sure because it came from a big box retailer. The tree is a Reliance but grows and behaves very differently than another Reliance 20 feet away.
Just my two cents but stay away from the big box retailer trees unless you can determine the rootstock.
My Homedepot trees have been very successful. Macintosh, Jonagold, Winesap, golden delicious, Braeburn, Honeycrisp, and Grannysmith have all given me many apples. My two newest purchases in their third year and both have a few apples on them were very sickly looking and on sale for about 12 bucks and now are 10 to twelve feet tall are sweet sixteen and Fuji Iām excited to harvest from them. You are correct about root stock issues, but so far 7 or 8 years later no issues except two are showing signs of being larger than dwarf so it is a gamble, but for me worth it.
