I’ve made two purchases from them so far and both were a good experience. They have a variety of rare fruits like jujubes, pawpaws, quinces, honeyberries, cornelian cherries and many nut trees. I like that they often give the real name of the variety along with its American trademarked name. Often time I can search information about it in the Russian sources by its real name. I really like how carefully they packed the plants. Both times I communicated with them by e-mail and received very good responses.
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Hey Maria- it sounds like you’ve explained this tree before, but I missed it. What is the story with your half almond/half peach tree? Was it a seedling that you grew out and then decided it must have been 1/2 and 1/2? Or did you, for some reason, intentionally create a 1/2 peach/ 1/2 almond? I remember Ulises ( @itheweatherman ) crossed the two and the “fruit” looked pretty useless. (though it was a neat project for sure). However you ended up with it, did you just graft all the limbs? Why not just cut it at 2-3 and do one good cleft graft and let it become a new peach or almond tree?
Please understand that in no way am I suggesting you should have done anything different at all. I’m just very curious about the tree, how it came to be, and what you are doing with/to it. Thanks.
Rolling River is an excellent grower. They work very hard to produce some nice trees and plants. I’ve ordered several times from them and have always gotten high quality plants. They have a very nice, broad selection of pomegranates, and I have purchased several different, more difficult to find poms from them. ALl came in wonderful condition, all have survived and are doing very well. Very nice people, too.
Patty S.
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Kevin, this is peach-almond cross Reliable, sold by Raintree. The kernels are sweet, so I hoped to grow a northern almond tree. 
However it is very vigorous and unproductive. It has just a few flower buds and they do not set much. Last year finally I got two kernels from this tree and decided that it makes very good rootstock. Grafting over the big trunk requires more knowledge that I have. And it takes a lot of man power and I am only a woman. also on peaches grafts on the new wood have better chances to take as I’ve read it on this forum. I have many different varieties of peaches and nectarines grafted on this tree, so it will interesting to see how it fares next year.
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Thanks for that. I didn’t even know anyone sold such a thing- so that’s how much I know. Also didn’t know a peach/almond would make an eatable nut or fruit. That’s why I was interested in your post, so thanks for the info. And btw…I’ve never tried to top work a whole peach tree, but if it is any harder than just grafting limbs on peaches I couldn’t do it either! I almost never get peach grafts to take for some reason. Hope you have better luck! Thanks.
I got my 2ed order of trees today. These are from Grow Organic/Peaceful Valley. The trees were almost all really thick diameter- most about the size of a broomstick. But the roots were cut back BIG TIME! These were the most dramatically trimmed roots I’ve seen. The fact that such large diameter trees have so little roots is a bit concerning to me.
Here is a photo of all the trees and you can see the roots a bit in the first photo. The second photo shows the same trees in the same order, but with signs indicating what they are in case you wonder. The reason I made all the little signs is that I took close up photos of each tree and its roots with a sign indicating what kind of tree it is. I thought this might be useful if some of them die.
I’m pretty nervous, what do you all think? Even if they are ok, I just don’t understand the need to prune roots so hard like this. Surely they would do better/grow faster/be healthier with bigger roots. Of course these are all Dave Wilson Trees, BTW. They should know what they are doing and I assume they did this and not pleasant valley. Either way, I’d feel better with more roots!!
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I have mentioned this several times about the severe butchering they do, but all trees did fine for me. I did cut the tops way back though to match the roots.
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Kevin,
Those roots look better than some of the trees I got. They will be fine. I do soak the trees in bucket of water before I plant. The instruction in the box said a couple of hours. I have no patience and after about 1/2 - 1 hr. I am ready to plant them.
The picture of your lined-up trees with name tags reminds me of a beauty pageant 
Who’s the winner?
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Those roots look really good compared to some of the ones I get that are larger but have several broken ones that I end up pruning back. Like Mamuang says, soak them and they will do fine… Really do look good.
That looks just like the nect I got from Bay Laurel, and it was a Dave Wilson tree, too
I’d like to know who does this cutting-back.
Planted it Sunday, hoping the green leaf-tips survive the little cold snap we’re about to have. Had to stake it, since I can’t expect those roots to hold it up in the ground
You guys all made me feel better. THanks. I really am glad to get all the varieties I did, although the timing is a little depressing since its hard to plant $200 in stone fruit trees a week after frost killed all my stone fruit and made me second guess if I should even try. Oh well. At least every few years I’ll have some great tasting fruit! ha
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Looks like a great selection of fruit tress! The nurseries cut back the roots to plant in pots to prolong their selling season. Also roots are pruned before planting to avoid crossing roots. Those were pruned to much but that’s to fit them all in pots. My local nursery has started using square fiber pots that seem to fit a little more root. Very nice looking trees, enjoy your harvest!
Are you saying Dave Wilson cut them back and potted them, or the retailer did?
Given that mine was shipped at the beginning of March, I find it hard to believe they were prolonging a selling season
I’m not sure about that. These were bought, shipped, sold and shipped again and were always represented to be bare root trees. I don’t think there was ever an intention to pot them up- either by the retail nursery (Peaceful Valley) or the end customer who buys them as bare root trees to be planted in ground. I’m not sure they don’t trim the roots so much just to make them easier to handle, take up less space when shipping, and so on.
Thanks for the kind words on my selection. Hopefully these guys will all live and I’ll one day get a spring without a late frost so I can try all these fruits! ha. Thanks.
This is done by the nursery you bought from. They sell those trees all summer at bay laurel and peaceful valley.This holds true for almost all the nurseries here in California. In fact they probably sell a lot more after they are potted. A lot of nurseries just pot their bare root trees right off the bat. So, when they get them from Dwn, they trim roots and pot up. The ones they ship, they put aside and ship bareroot. I bought a potted 4in1 pluot from Bay laurel for a friend. If they only did bare root their would be way less sales and lots of waste. Your selection of fruit is very nice, they should do well for you. Enjoy!
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Wish Dave Wilson did retail sales
That for sure is true. The nursery is in California and most trees are now flowering. To tell the truth it is surprising they are still shipping trees. They say they are done after the first week of March or so, I guess they extended it some? Usually Peaceful Valley sends trees here in January. So I would only order late, whatever they have left, what I think Kevin did.
I wish I could say that was my grand plan, Drew, but I’m afraid it was mostly just me procrastinating! ha.
But like you said, Peaceful Valley usually stops shipping by now, that’s why I was having a hard time understanding how or why they would be potting trees up for extended season.
I’m really glad you posted about this, and when we talked earlier about these nurseries. I certanily plan to order late from Peaceful. I order a few products from them time to time. Bay Laurel the first week in March is usually OK, but this year it’s too wet. I’m still waiting to plant out Juliet Bush Cherry. My yard is a mud pit! I should be able to plant in a few days. I have a blueberry too, I need to get that in the ground!
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I hear ya about the wet soil, ours is still sopping wet. We’re supposed to have three more days of dry weather so I’ll be out there laying down the lime. But, it’s supposed to start raining again starting Saturday. I’m getting anxious as I need to also get the tractor out and plow, but you can’t plow in the mud! While I was away in OK, folks around here took advantage of the warm weather and went ahead and plowed. But, I think it’s actually too early.