Over a couple decades ago I had an employee hired by the owner of the garden center I managed at the time…and he kept bragging about his ‘master gardener’ certificate.
I said, if they’d let me take the danged test and not have to go to indoctrination classes…I bet you I can pass it! Not too many months later I became self employed. I doubt if he moved up too high in the company though.
This is also my favorite list. My last order with TOA was for 20 apples and I was very happy with everything they sent. Everything I pre-ordered months in advanced was delivered, unlike some other nurseries I’ve dealt with.
Well, the pass rate on the final exam was 100%. More of a tea club than a serious organization. But our classes were taught by UC Davis extension professors. Pretty good material.
What species of trees are you looking to buy? That greatly influences the businesses that people would likely recommend to you. I have done a lot of reading on this forum and have come up with my personal list of “good” nurseries, either by default because they are the only ones that sell certain cultivars (or have a huge selection), or because they have great reviews and affordable prices, or simply just great customer service. Depending on what you order, price or quality may be more important.
Sure. Sort of my point. Some ‘master gardeners’ may be great gardeners…but many that have no such title are also!
(And some know very little that have the title ‘master’)
My kind, wonderful son decided he would order a . . . guess what??? for Mother’s Day.
A Peach Tree.!!! (Do I need another one? Does he know anything about buying peach trees? Did he end up with a good variety for my area?)
Answers to all those questions would be . . . no.
So, he bought it from ‘Fast Growing Trees’ - ordered the tallest one he could get - paid about 3 times too much . . . and ordered a variety that would probably love being in Wisconsin, but Virginia? We’ll see.
But, it was the thought that counts. 
And I now have a 5’ plus Reliance peach tree that I will have to find a spot for! 
Did I mention that I hope it survives its first steamy summer, planting it so late? . . . . (I’m such a BAD mommy.)
If he’d sought my suggestions, I would have pointed him to Cummins. But he was going for the BIG SURPRISE factor.
It is a beauty, though. It better be for over $100 plus shipping. LOL
I have several ‘girlfriends’ who claim to be master gardeners. They know absolutely nothing about vegetable gardening and fruit trees. I roll my eyes (inside) whenever they drop the ‘I’m a Master Gardener’ statement. I should say . . . . . ‘Well, so-and-so, I may not have a certificate . . . but I HAVE THE FRUIT FORUM behind ME!’ snic snic
My first run in with the “master gardener” type I was having a problem with my red currants. A local nursery was advertising all week that there would be “master gardeners on site to help with your gardening problems”. So I cut off a branch, took it up to the nursery and told the “master gardener” that I believed my problem (defoliation) was due to “imported currant worms”. She took one look at it and asked me “if you’re trying to grow these plants, why would you import worms to eat them”. Her partner nodded in agreement.
I shook my head and headed off to the oldest actual nursery employee I could find. He recommended insecticidal soap and a good blast from the hose.
Scott
Karen ,
You should post your $100 tree on the Fruit Tree for $85 thread.
Your son is lovely and well-meaning. I only got a text “Happy’s Mother’s Day”. You are way ahead of me 
I’ve had good luck with starkbrothers for apples. Put in 30 Bare root trees and they all survived. They are 7 years old and most are productive on my shady hillside
I’m thinking about becoming one of those guys! 
The University of Alaska has a Master Gardener program. I’m thinking about taking it because there are a lot of idiosyncrasies to growing stuff up here, lots of tricks of the trade. Besides that it also gives me access to the association, and associating with folks doing what you are into is one of the best ways to learn new stuff.
Besides that I would feel rather douchey to call myself a “Master Gardener”. I’ll probably keep that factoid private.
I got a refund email notification from Raintree with no further explanation that my order was canceled. I found that quite rude. I was meant to infer from the refund that they wouldn’t be fulfilling that portion of the order. (of course they still planned to send me the filler item and charge full shipping, so I had to cancel the rest).
I had a similar issue with a seed order. I put my pole bean seed order in January, scouring the internet to find places with what I wanted in stock. In April I got a refund notification - no notice that my order was canceled. In this case, at least, they refunded the entire order in spite of having shipped half of it.
My conscience allowed me to sleep well, pocketing the full refund without asking them for clarification. Of course in April it was impossible to find another source for the pole bean I’d wanted - Monte Gusto.
TOA is a Top-dollar boutiquey kind of place, but yeah. No argument about the quality.
how common are meconopsis poppies up there in Alaska? I’m always a little jealous of those poppies, though my regular red ones are just about to pop here…
Scott (ok, it wasn’t a tree question…)
On the highway between Eagle River and the valley there is a wetland areas that gets covered with flowers as far as the eye can see. Sometime late this month to early June the rains will come and a few days after it turns into a an explosion of colors. I’m sure i have seen quite a few blue poppies there.
I looked up Master Gardener online to find out what kinds of things they taught. What I found was a article mentioned that they teach all about chemicals and a certain plant. I forget the plant they mentioned. Honestly with the internet all the information is at your finger tips now days. I can look up the information on the internet and if I don’t find the information on the internet I can just ask a group like this. This group is honestly super smart when it comes to plants and knows what they are doing. If I have a question about gardening in my state I can ask the CSU extension or a gardening group for my state.
Well, this year Cummins gave me the worst customer service that I have gotten from any business before! I ordered a bunch of trees from them (apples, pears and plums) and they arrived a couple of weeks ago, mostly in very good condition except for a plum that had Crown Gall lump as big as a lemon! I emailed them back with photos, asking for refund. Here is the exact text of my email:
"Dear Cummins Nursery,
I received the order below yesterday and I immediately opened the package to inspect the trees, they were mostly in very good shape except the Empress plum which had a sizable crown gall in its roots (see attached photos); I initially thought it is a soil lump but when I tried to remove it, it broke off showing the lighter brown color that you see in the photos. Please refund me for this tree or send me a clean replacement (from a different planting block). Also, please instruct your crew to thoroughly inspect the trees after harvesting them and before shipping; I am concerned that this infected tree was packaged with 6 other trees and might have infected them. Finally, I hope you still know where this infected tree was planted because that area is probably infected with CG bacteria and should not be used for future planting unless appropriately treated.
Regards,
Ahmad"
I followed my email by a hone call, and the guy who answered the phone told me that he saw my email and that it was impolite! I couldn’t believe myself (I thought Cummins had a good reputation) and responded back saying that he has sent me a tree with a very big Crown gall that could have infected my soil forever, he responded by saying that it was a mistake and that my email is impolite because I should not tell him how to run his business.
In addition to this blatant negligence (assuming good intentions) and shamelessness, he ended up refunding me for a smaller size tree (the infected tree was a bigger, more expensive tree). As I received two plums whose sizes (grades 1 and 5) were mismatched with what was on their invoice, and I did explain that to him asking whether they were mislabeled and he insisted they are not (frankly, I have zero trust in what this guy does or says, so I don’t really know what the truth is). Finally, I sent him another email asking whether the second plum tree (with no visible disease) was planted in the same block as the diseased tree or not, but he never responded to me!
Now, I wonder, if this guy will reach out to customers who bought trees from the diseased block warning them that their trees might be infected…
In the contrary to this very poor customer service, ACN refused to sell trees to many of their customers this year because they discovered Crown Gall in their planting block (If I remember correctly they told me ~90% of their peach/nectarine trees this year were infected, and they destroyed them instead of sending them to unsuspecting customers). I am sure they had big financial loss because of that, but that what honest business practice is!
To answer the original question: ACN, Bay Laurel and Peaceful Valley have sold me excellent trees, year after year. ACN have replaced damaged trees for me upon sending them photos of the damage. their trees are reasonably priced and their shipping is cheaper than other places.
People at work were asking me if I bought my mother flowers for mothers day at work. I got to tell them I bought my mother a trip to Arizona this year. I am thinking of moving to Arizona a few years after I get career at my job at USPS and I figured I would check out the area I want to be around. I decided to take my mother along and pay for the entire trip for mothers day. Everyone has their own what is good for mothers day or Christmas. For me I skip a few times and get my mother something big later on.
Fedco sent an apology. Basically what they said is that when you are a re-seller, you never know what quantity / quality trees you will receive. So I guess you can reduce this risk inly by dealing with the guys who actually produce the trees. I’ve turned mostly to buying the rootstock and scion wood and grafting my own.
