Why Bay Laurel, Why?

I ordered a couple of new types of pluots and a nectarine from Bay Laurel. When I told a sales rep that I was willing to pay more in shipping if she could arrange to send trees without the roots butchered she said OK. she would arrange to have them sent in a larger box. My shipping cost for 3 trees went from $28 to $85.

The box was tall but thin so my extra $57 got me a few inches of more trunk which I will be removing when I plant the trees. The roots seemed even more butchered than my last purchase from them.

I guess I will go back to the other source in Ukiah. At least they are small enough to maybe no where their tail is.

I realize the trees will likely live, but I lose about a year’s worth of growth when roots are handled like that. I’m trying these CA varieties as an experiment and the sooner I get results the more it is worth to me.

Alan, That was a bummer when you had to paid more for shipping and the root got butchered the same. I would call the customer service and see if they can give you some credit back.

Tony

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Yeah Tony, I e-mailed them. I will post the results.

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I agree with Tony. Call and ask to speak to the supervisor. Request all your additional shipping back, because they didn’t do what you asked them to do. That was ridiculous.

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Well the response has me mollified for now- here it is.

"I am very sorry that you are not happy with the trees. We shipped in the largest box we have which is twenty five inches longer and about five inches wider each way than the small box from your last order. I just spoke with the person who packed your order and he said that he only pruned the roots slightly so that the trees would fit into the box. If you have not planted yet, I would be very interested in seeing a photo of the roots and trees. Is that a possibility?

Ellen

P.S. You are entitled to rant since you feel that we did not do what you asked. I am hoping that we can make you happy before we are done."

Nice, right?

I had thanked the “to whom it may concern” for reading through my rant at the end of my complaint about the trees.

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Alan, I sympathize with you and you have right to be mad, but I don’t
really think you’ll lose a year’s growth. All of the pluots I’ve gotten from BL
have grown like gang busters, even with the roots pruned. You and I are both
proponents of using diluted urine. I cut my tops back also, and after the trees
have leafed out, I feed them 1gallon of DL every week, until september. By the end of the first season, they’re 7-8 ft. tall and fully branched. In fact, I even have to prune mine. But they should definitely refund your money.

Ray, the last time this happened I had smaller diameter but larger rooted trees from ACN and that’s where I got my figure from- I treated all trees the same and got a decent crop from the ACN trees last year still waiting on the rootless wonders (actually I got a handful of peaches from one of them). Roots matter.

But that said, it isn’t a big deal- I mostly posted it because I thought it would provide some interest and a warning about investing in bigger boxes. I wasn’t physically upset in any way, just slightly peeved.

I really don’t know, but I’d suspect a fair amount of the root damage happens when they dig the trees, though it sounds like they trim when packing too.

Bummer to have your request and extra shipping money accomplish so little.

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It’s poor follow-through on their part to make a deal for extra cost and not provide the special services that were paid for.

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I am in a nursery business where I buy trees wholesale from suppliers such as Adams County Nursery and Van Well, I’ve also purchased trees from about 30 other nurseries over the last 25 years- mostly bare root. Every other supplier I’ve ever used consistently ships more root with their trees than BL.

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Yeah, I actually just planted my first tree from Bay Laurel last weekend. I took it out of the box and when I saw the roots I thought “WTF??” They were little stubs just a couple inches long. Nothing like the bareroot trees I’ve planted from Cummins and Fedco. I thought maybe it was a fluke but I guess that is just how they do things. I’m a little worried about the lack of roots on that tree. I pruned the top pretty hard. Glad to hear from other’s with trees like that which eventually took off.

Same problem here with horrendously chopped roots. All the trees had stubs for roots which were about 3 inches long. Unbelievable! The trees went into pots to be pampered but are still at least one year behind other trees I purchased. The replacement agreement is the buyer pays the shipping rate! Not a good deal!

I stopped ordering from Bay Laurel years ago after getting too many of those butchered trees. Now I order my DWN stock from Sanhedrin or Peaceful Valley.

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I made a pretty large order from Sanhedrin this year and they were good people to do business with. Very responsive to questions. Tho they did ship quite late considering they are a California outfit. I believe we got our trees from them in late Feb. It appears that they are a pretty small outfit and were complaining that DWN got them their stock very late. I imagine its like alot of things in business, the big boys get first priority from DWN and the little guys get it when they get around to it. But yes very nice people.

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Dave Wilson shipped out their bare roots pretty late this year everywhere due to weather.

Local retail nurseries in my area received their DWN trees first or second week of January. I bought a few on January 16th.

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I’ll third Scott and Eric’s approval of Sanhedrin. They actually went to some effort and tied up the roots, rather than just hacking them off. At least on two out of 3 trees. The third, Carnival, looked pretty cut back, so maybe they are already cut when DWN sends them out? Or maybe Sanhedrin cuts the ones with damaged roots. If it is the latter, as they are a small operation, I bet that they would respond to the kind of request you made. All for standard shipping- you can fit a lot of roots in a box, especially the way they bundled them.

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I think roots on Contorted and Heath Cling are slightly cut back as well. When I buy DWN trees of similar size at local nurseries, roots are huge. I’m having a hard time fitting these trees into my compact–size sedan.

Sorry to hear that about Baylaurel. The best trees I ever bought were theirs and the best tree I have is one of theirs. Had plenty of roots in those days.

They have trouble getting their trees dormant some seasons. I’d be leery about shipping their stuff all the way across the country in the best of circumstances

I got eight trees from Sanhedrin this year and I was also very impressed with their quality.

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