ToA and Grow Organic have the largest trees, at least in my experience. Generally 5/8-3/4". But, Chinese Red Date trees have surprised me by establishing quickly for a tree of that size (mostly 3/8-1/2", with a few larger ones) and a decent number of them have fruited in the first year. As best I can guess, they have more fine roots than the slightly bigger trees from the other nurseries. I wouldn’t have any hesitation ordering from any of those 3. Between GO and ToA, GO has the edge because they carry Honey Jar & Sugar Cane, while ToA only has Sugar Cane (and several less interesting varieties). Chinese Red Date has the most good varieties, but the trade-off is that it is a bit more difficult to order from them. You need to email them well in advance to reserve the trees- about now for next spring.
I order a lot of trees and post about it online too, but I don’t think it really changes things. At least, not for the big commercial nurseries. Maybe it has a small effect on a place like CRD or Cliff England’s more personalized operations, but even then, I suspect they are probably pretty busy in the spring packing and shipping orders, to tweak things so that people more likely to review get nicer trees.
One thing that might explain your good experience with Burnt Ridge is if you mostly order Chico from them. I’ve ordered from them several times and each time the Chico tree was very nicely sized, bigger than everything else in the order.
It’d be interesting to see how much interest there is. I think some of these places buy the trees, not make them themselves. For example, I emailed ToA one time to ask if he got his trees from DWN (who also make good sized trees and supply Grow Organic) and he said that he had a different supplier. I bet that Taylor Yowell would be interested- he’s been building quite a collection and sells the scionwood.
