UGH…5/1 … This is the only thing i hate about Raintree… They could send the trees right now and i would be fine…every year that i can remember i could have planted on 4/1 …if not sooner.
Thankfully mine are coming in around 4/3. Being shipped from Chicago means they will be in on the following Monday. Happy times!
4/3 is ok for here, but I could put them in the ground right now. I am not sure what weather in the Midwest they are talking about? Sounds like they are just getting behind…it has been 60" here for a few weeks.
When I was talking to them about rootstock they said they were delayed because they hadn’t received their stock yet (from Treco?). So maybe it is their vendors who couldn’t ship to them because of earlier weather that has put them behind.
I received my raintree order today. This is my first ever order from an online nursery. I opened the box to check it out and as far as I can tell it looks as I expected. I ordered 5 trees, 5 Nanking cherries, and 5 bud9 rootstocks. I did not remove the plastic bag wrapped around the roots because I can not plant them until Saturday and wanted to keep the roots in the same condition as they were shipped. There was a little condensation on the inside of the bag so I assume that’s good. The fig tree was not bare root so it was seperated from the other trees. 3 of the 5 trees were combination trees and from what I can see each branch was marked with variety which was nice. However, one thing I noticed was there was an apple and an Asian pear that was not one of the listed varieties on the original combo trees. Hopefully they are decent.
The caliper of the apple tree was the smallest. Maybe a 1/2" or 5/8". The single black gold cherry was a little larger and the combo Asian pear is the tree in the picture next to the pencil. The combo cherry was very thick caliper likely 1.25" or larger. I only saw tags on 2 of the cherries and they were lapins and montmorency.
The Nankings and the rootstocks were buried in the bag with the tree roots so I was not able to get a good look at them.
Guess I’ll see Saturday what the root ball looks like on the trees. Hopefully no problem. I think I’ll fully open the packaging Saturday morning and stick the trees in a bucket of water. I’ll try to plant them in the afternoon. actually, I just looked at the forecast and it appears we will have a cold snap this weekend with highs in the mid 30’s and a low of 22 degrees. Still a good time to plant? All trees still appear to be dormant from what I can tell. I’m storing them in the coldest part of my basement in sort of a cellar.
If the trees are still dormant and the ground is workable then plant them with out any issue.
Tony
I agree with Tony. I have done it, and it worked out fine.
I just opened up the trees and got a closer look at them. The two smaller trees had good looking roots but the 2 larger caliper trees roots didn’t look that great to me. They had fewer small roots and a couple large roots that were pruned to fit in the box. Hopefully they are okay.
The Asian pear was actually a 5-in-1 with one of the branches labeled “Anjou”. Isn’t that a regular pear? The other branches were labeled Shinseki, kosui, Yongi, and Nijiseiki.
The 4-in-1 apple had Honeycrisp, Chehalis, Akane and an apple named Summerred. The summerred apple was not listed on the original spec sheet. It was supposed to be either Jonagold or Beni Shogun (fuji). I like both Jonagold and fuji so I’m rather disappointed that the apple was replaced by summerred. Anyone familiar with that apple? Ease don’t tell me it’s a red delicious 
The 4-1 cherry was the largest tree with marginal roots in my opinion. The cherries were lapins, emperor francis, montmorency, and glacier. Not bad but would’ve rather had early burlat instead of Glacier.
The bud9 rootstocks looked very good but the Nanking cherries looked pretty marginal. Wondering if they are even alive. Guess we’ll see this spring.
Speed,
Take a look at my post I made about amending soil. Everyone of my trees had come with butchered roots. Many had just large stubs. Everyone that arrived at least living with one viable bud has lived. No need to worry.
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Ditto
Mike
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I got the same 4 in one apple. Mine had Akane, Jonagold, Chehalis, Beni Shogun, and Summer red. Googling, Summer Red is a McIntosh x Golden Delicious cross from British Columbia. They are a Summer apple that makes pink apple sauce.
My order that was to ship in mid March shipped Wednesday and arrived yesterday. I live about a 2 hour drive from Raintree.
The 4 in 1 pluot is the largest caliper bare root tree I’ve ever seen, maybe 1.5" in diameter. The Nadia cherry plum was the second largest I’ve seen and over an inch.
The roots seemed okay, but all my frame of reference is from Raintree, One Green World, and Burnt Ridge.
The Nadia roots were a bit strange in that the roots were slanted relative to the trunk, like it had been grown on a hill, and were cut into more of a fan shape than a cone. It suited my planting spot perfectly because I planted it on a slope of about the same angle in a mulched strip that was longer than wide in the same way.
I bought a 4-1 cherry from Rainttee last season. It had horrendously chopped roots and did not make it. Had I known better, I would have immediately requested a new tree. I waited and it finally died last summer. They sent me a new 4-1 combo this year that has good roots. My last year’s tree ended up being a bonus 5-1 while this years was a 4-1 (little bummed I lost the bonus variety). My tree this year has Early Burlat, Emperor Francis, Lapin’s and Montmorency. I could care less about Montmorency as the wife and I don’t like tart cherries. I have a pic of the chopped roots on another laptop.
The same year I ordered two apples. One was a honeycrisp on M26 that I thought should have been larger. Now starting my second season with that tree and it is still smaller than the M26 Honeycrisps my local nursery sells (Portland Nursery). The other items from Raintrree were good (Akane apple, berries and rootstocks).
Edit: I’ve uploaded a picture of the cherry after I pulled it out in Sept 2014. No change on the roots since it was planted in Feb 2014.
<img src="//growingfruit-images.s3-us-west-2.amazonaws.com/original/1X/b565fef0e2e10c7caab669b81205992344e9d988.jpg" width=“750” height=“1000”
My order arrived today!
Sounds pretty much exactly like apples I dislike. I bet it’s mealy. I’ll try it out but if it’s what I think it is it will be a perfect grafting candidate.
What caliper would you say the Nad doesia is and where does the branching start? It looks to be well above 3/4 and closer to 1+.
4x1 Zee Sweet Pluot (Splsh/E.Drop/F.Gren/G.Pride)
over 1.5" caliper:
Nadia Cherry/Plum over 1" caliper with plenty of roots:
Columbia Star blackberries in 4" pots, packed very well:
