Mostly trees, shrubs and vines that are not suitable to my area due to being the wrong zone, spring frosts killing flowers, or lack of disease resistance to diseases common in the area. I have even seen apples and pears with fireblight and rust for sale.
My long term results with big box store fruit trees, are mixed. But that is also true for mail order trees.
Low cost is good. No postage / handling. I get to see what they look like in person. Not as much variety or choice.
I have a 12 year old Stanley plum, very healthy and grew very well. Also a Montmorency cherry and several sweet cherry varieties. The blackberries are mixed success. I should not have bought Ebony King, itās too thorny and not nearly as good as newer types. I also bought Arapaho there. I bought Toka plum at a big box store. Delicious plum, but the canker was deadly. A couple of other fruit trees, I forget which ones, didnāt thrive, and died.
I also bought several shade trees there, after-season deep sales (like $8.99 for a $39 tree) for several Greenspire lindens, a Crimson King maple, and a Mountain Ash. Those were root bound, but after unraveling / pruning the roots, they did very well and Iām happy with them. If I had to do it over, I would hose off the soil and bare-root then which has been very successful for my trees.
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Very little attempt to match tree to zone. āFujiā is maybe a little too long-season here in the Rocky Mountain foothills, but Dorset Golden, a Bahamian Apple here in z 6? Really? Granny Smith?
How difficult is it to rig the ordering system to match deliveries to climactic zones?
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Walmart has trees here. The Blueberries are beautiful things but right beside them are of all things Thompson seedless grapes. Everyone knows that nameā¦and the regular joe will buy them not knowing that they wil die in a year or two from Pierceās disease. Last year they only carried Bartlett Pears which will quickly succumb to fire blight in this area. Itās all about money with the familiar names. At least they are selling Kieffer pears this year.
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I walked past a Whole Foods store two days ago to get to another store in the same shopping center. I noticed apple and cherry trees, and raspberry bushes for sale in the small gallon pots. I looked that them all and none of them has actual descriptions of what the variety was. It just said āappleā, āred raspberry " cherryā, āpearā on the tags. I forgot my phone or I would have taken pictures of the labels. Has anyone else seen this? Does anyone shop at Whole Foods to see if that is the same brand of container fruit trees that are being sold there as well? I was out of town down south. So I know the Whole Foods store near me does not have container fruit trees quite yet. Probably at the end of the month or beginning of next month. Just curious about if that was a local thing or if it is a national type thing they sell.
I noticed that last year at local whole foods . They only had āAppleā, āpeachā etc on the tag. 4 years ago my hubby bought me a Fuji apple tree from Whole Foods and back then it had the variety listed but still no rootstock mentioned. Back then I wasnāt a member here and didnāt care/know about rootstock and was happy that he bought an Apple tree. If he did the same thing today itād be a different reaction :).
later on I called the nursery name on the tag and found out what the rootstock was.
But you are right their tags got even more simple than it used to be. Soon theyāll stop typing anything on the tag all together.
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I was interested in a few apple trees that Tractor Supply Store had out in front of their store at the end of the spring and they were marked done to $5 each. They had the apple variety and size listed ( semi dwarf, dwarf, etc.) but no rootstock listed. I did the same as you did, I called the nursery that was listed on the label. However, I was not as successful as you were in finding out what rootstock they used. They told me they used many different companies to get their rootstocks from and also different nursery subcontractors to do the work for them so their would no way they could tell me what rootstock that was used on their trees. I did not buy any of them. They were a great price. I just was leery of what rootstock problems I would run into later on.
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I was at the Poway CostCo last weekend shopping with my wife. Iād been thinking about getting a lime tree to round out the lemon, orange, finger lime, and tangerine trees that we have, so I took a few minutes to browse the trees they had for sale. All the various citrus they had were right around $20 and while they were smaller than the trees youād find at HD or our local nurseries, they were $10-20 cheaper and more in line with my budget.
I was pleasantly surprised to find a few Finger Lime trees sprinkled in with the other citrus. If I already didnāt have one, I would have picked it up.
Today I bought these at Loweās and paid $12.80 for all 6 plants. Includes one Brightwell blue berry, one Powder Blue and one Bonus Blue berry. Smaller pots are 2 geraniums and one mandelvilla.
I remember reading posts about how rabbiteye blueberries are better suited for south and not my zone. But I figured at this price I can take the risk.
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Very good buy.I enjoy shopping at bigbox store and buying on sale stuff
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I have given up on big box store fruit trees. I bought 3 trees from Home Depot last year, 2 Early Elbertaās and a Red Haven. The two Early Elbertaās were Belle of Georgia trees and the Red Haven did not start to ripen until way past Red Haven season. Two TruGold Peaches from Lowes were not TruGolds. I have a Hale Haven from Tractor Supply that is my latest peach of the season (past Encore) so definitely not a Hale Haven, A Belle of Georgia from Sams Club that is a nectarine. This year broke me from buying from big box stores again. Buyer beware!
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āHow difficult is it to rig the ordering system to match deliveries to climactic zones?ā Impossible.
I worked for Loweās this year & learned they are following the habits of Home Depot: vendors send whatever plants theyāve got. The store has no input whatever anymore.
And vendors place plants wherever there is space without any consideration of what the plant requires in that area. I was hired to keep plants watered - a losing battle for tender things like impatiens in noonday sun of eastern Washington.
The fruit trees? Heartbreaking.
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If you find lots of suckers coming up from the base of an apple in the pot at your favorite Big Box outfit, it is likely to be M7. Plenty of grafting companies like that stock & find it does well in much of the eastern half of the Lower 48 states.
Itās also cheap to obtain for the same reason: stooling M7 has to be easier than tying your shoes.
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