Big Box Store Fruit Trees - What's your experience?

General Fruit Growing
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A number of years back we purchased 15 fruit trees from H.D. A mix of standard heirloom apples, pears and a couple semi dwarf peaches. The pears never leafed out that first summer, but the bark on the branches and trunk of the trees were still green. They never survived the winter. The peaches were planted in a protected area and survived two years before a hard winter took them out. Every single apple variety we planted survived, but never thrived and slowly died over a few years.

We purchased two semi dwarf Montmorency Cherry trees, a Stanley Plum and a semi dwarf Methley Plum from Menards six years ago. All are thriving, beautiful, and put on excellent growth every year. The M.C trees started bearing fruit their second season and have been giving us loads of beautiful pie cherries every year. The plums also thrived and grew at a quick rate. We get loads of blossoms on the Methley every spring , but the fruit set, then most drop off prematurely. So far we have gotten a handfull of sweet ripe fruit for the last couple seasons. The Stanley Plum is a bit stingy with its fruit so far, but what we do get is true to type and delicious. Two years ago we purchased four varieties of semi dwarf apple trees from Menards and so far they are thriving. All the trees were labeled when we purchased them and when they start bearing we will see if they are true to type. I have been very happy with the quality of their trees.

Next year we plan on purchasing from a nursery also to get more variety.

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I have bought apples from Home Depot because they carry dwarf Apple trees and Lowes seems to only carry semi dwarf apple trees. I have only once gotten the wrong Apple tree from them and yes that happens at local nurseries and on line also. The things I have to check with on their Apple trees is how deep the grafted part of the tree is buried. Sometimes it is buried too deep. And also the branching. Sometimes the branches haven’t been pruned properly and they are at a bad angle. Overall I have been happy with their Apple trees.

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John, the big box stores will choose to label things “dwarf” and “semi-dwarf”, and not necessarily reflective of the rootstock. So, take those terms with a grain of salt until you can find out from the grower, exactly what rootstock the cultivar has been grafted to.

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Can’t see finding out from the grower if I am getting them from Home Depot. I have plenty of trees from online companies so I am not to concerned about a few wrong labeled apple root stock from Home Depot. I have no doubt that many trees are labeled wrong for the big box stores. I have had them in the ground for 4 years and they seem to be what they were labeled.

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if I were shooting for a specific root stock I would never buy them from a big box store. Even if I hunted them down not sure if I would trust their answer.

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I was just responding to a comment you made on a previous post, John. You had made this statement in your previous post: “I have bought apples from Home Depot because they carry dwarf Apple trees and Lowes seems to only carry semi dwarf apple trees.” I would say to you that the “dwarf” tree at Home Depot may, indeed, be on semi-dwarfing rootstock. I had this very conversation with both Lowe’s and HD. HD told me they just call all their trees “dwarf” as opposed to a standard tree. So, it may not be what we all on this forum would considered to be grafted to a rootstock that would actually qualify to be on truly dwarf rootstock. I would not use their definition as my defining purchase decision, but instead, select for the cultivar scion, and if size really is an issue, find out from the grower if the “dwarf” trees really ARE on fully dwarfing rootstock, and not just labeled as so by HD. :relaxed:

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That is more annoying than if they were just different dwarf grafts on them. Happily in four years a haven’t seen any crazy growth from them.

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i’ll stand by my thoughts of several years ago: If you want to grow a tree don’t make it any more random than you have to! You’ll have a lot of time and money invested aside from selecting and buying the tree itself.

I bought my pear from a nearby nursery after speaking with the grower, following his recommendation on variety (he knew of my desire to graft different varieties to the tree) and rootstock (his choice for this area.) I paid more than I would have paid in some places but still cheaper than mail order. The tree was remarkably precocious, bearing a little the year it was planted and being generous since, if you allow for my annual butchering of the poor thing.

But I do have to admit to seeing plenty of badly pruned or neglected trees in nurseries being offered at high prices. One local, expensive nursery carries its stock from year to year in those little pots- caveat emptor, I guess, so you still have to be careful.

-:slight_smile: M

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One of my neighbors bought two Apple trees from a very nice local nursery, both were pruned poorly and many of their limbs were almost going straight up in stead of horizontal. Each tree was 45 dollars and one of them was some type of green apple instead of a fuji. They bought them on a whim and had me plant them.

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I don’t think someone’s positive opinions about Big Box trees means much if they haven’t even had the trees long enough to bring in crop. I have managed trees that are of bearing age purchased this way so I have seen the problems that can result.

Peaches have been a particular problem. You really need to be sure of the variety if you are planting more than one so you can be sure to have trees that bare at different times.

I agree with Drew about blueberries though. I’ve even seen nice plants for sale at grocery chains that were healthy plants loaded with fruit at a good price. If you can actually sample the fruit ahead of time- how wrong can you go.

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I have found that the trees I have bought from the big box stores are decent. The varieties are basic, such as yellow delicious, red delicious, black tartarian cherry, kieffer pear, montmorency cherry, etc. I have had some canker problems with plums from the big box stores but they grew out of it. One thing to check is the graft union. Sometimes the lower part of the tree will be damaged and hidden under gaudy advertising materials.

Another thing to check if possible is the root system on the tree. The trees sold this way are potted up bareroot trees. You really don’t want one that has been in the pot for very long because the roots will spiral and become rootbound. Sometimes you will get burned on one because you couldn’t tell it had been potted for a year and it is rootbound.

Walmart and Lowe’s have reasonable prices on these trees in my area of NW NJ. Home Depot does not have reasonable tree prices here - they are up to 65 dollars for what to me looks like older stock in a bigger pot. Better to get the young looking fresh undamaged stock without signs of big pruning work.

The stock you find locally at your big box store may not be adaptable to your area. Many of the varieties I have seen for sale at these stores will be very challenging to grow and be discouraging to the new grower. I have often wondered if this is on purpose to sell more garden solution products.

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The thing that bugs me is how slap-dash they are. These guys have formidable logistical ability. How difficult should it be to order zone appropriate trees on soil-correct rootstock and then label them correctly?

I wouldn’t diss the quality of their stock out of hand. I once saw a line of ‘Magness’ pears that I believe were the best looking nursery stock I’ve ever seen. On the other hand, the typical backyard grower is likely to be disappointed by the fruit production of his impulse purchase of a ‘Magness’ pear unless he happens to know what he is getting.

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I have used some big box store fruits, but mostly mail order.

The only trees that I planted, that died within 2 years, were a Satsuma plum and a Korean dogwood. Each took 2 years to die. Both were from Home Depot. Other Home Depot trees that have done very well were Toka plum, growing like crazy, Stanley plum, very healthy, Montmorency cherry, growing very well, some Greenspire lindens - for honeybee forage, growing very fast, and some shrubs. To be fair, that Satsuma and the dogwood were summer purchases, which isn’t ideal. From Lowes I bought Northstar cherry - growing so so but to be fair it had a deer setback, and some fan palms, growing nicely.

For me, catalogs are a much much better selection, and much more info I can dwell on and compare. The catalog trees are often smaller than big box store trees, around here. I like to spend a long time looking up a variety and what it needs, and how it will do in my climate and soil. For my climate that means disease resistant apples and pears, and leaf curl resistant peaches. Local nurserys often have the wrong selections for disease resistance here. The down side is you dont get to inspect the plant before you buy it, and there can be shipping issues. The local nurseries truck their trees in, so are not really local, and their managers gave me too much misinformation. Both sell some plants that are illegal in Oregon or Washington, such as Buddleias, and they told me all persimmons are wild and there are no varieties - wrong - and sold a Madrone that, when I took it out of the pot, had almost no roots, and died quickly.

Oh forgot - I bought a Hosui Asian pear for very low price, late summer, from Home Depot in 2012. Despite the raggedy appearance and bad timing, it settled in nicely, took off and grew very well. Has more than doubled in size. Although now it is a Hosui, Hamese, Shinseiki, Mishirasu Asian pear. The lindens were also late season, and didn’t miss a beat, grew fast. For $8.00 a tree, I figured I couldnt lose.

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Bear,
All your fruit trees from HD bear fruit true to labels? If so, you are one lucky guy.

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I only have Apple trees from HD one out of twelve is wrong. I bought two Golden Delicious and one turned out to be a Granny Smith which I am glad because it’s a good fall back Apple for pies and much better off the tree if left to ripen than store bought ones. I started with HD trees and then moved on to local nursery and on line purchases. I probably would never of started growing apples if I hadn’t started with cheap ones from HD. If anything the big box stores gives people the bug for growing things their not experienced with.

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The Satsuma died without bearing. The Toka were true to other catalog descriptions. I do think
I lucked out with that one, really delicious. Stanley plum was blue outside and yellow inside so I think so. I should know about the Hosui this year - looks promising for fruit, in its 3rd year now, Montmorency cherry was true to my childhood memories. So pretty good, I think. Also my Prairie Fire Crab from HD is true, but isnt really a fruit tree, just good for pollen and ornamental, also quite vigorous.

My biggest annoyance is a local high end nursery that sells a lot out of California. The genetic dwarf peaches were totally inappropriate for here. The strawberry guava, I was too naive to check whether it needed a pollinizer - no variety name, just Monrovia. I was dumb to buy that one. The aprium and apricots were also totally inappropriate for this region. They had nice stuff, but I did much better with Home Depot.

I still prefer catalogs, but I have to admit I’ve been happier with the Home Depot varieties and less happy with locally owned nurseries, than I expected. One other thing about the big box stores, including H.D - much smaller selection to choose from, and not much either really novel or heritage varieties. Although then again, Montmorency is a heritage, very old time tart cherry.

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That’s my experience too. If there is room, buying end of year clearance was amazingly cheap. I have learned to prune off all of the encircling roots, and usually prune back the top some to make up for that, some mulch and some TLC. As a result, I have some nice trees for a very low cost. Sometimes at first, kind of ugly duckling, but they grew out of it and look great. I could not have afforded them otherwise.

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I’m not sure why you can’t grow genetic dwarf peaches, or apricots, or apriums? I’m in Michigan and they grow fine here.

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For the record, this was taken yesterday at Lowes. It’s labled Honey Crisp / Cortland Twist but it’s clearly not a twisted combo like the Red/Golden Delicious combo twist in the background. One of the workers said it has two types of apples grafted on it but the only graft union was one at the base. There was a whole row of about 8 trees just like this one. So is it Honey Crisp? Cortland? Neither? This is why I shy away from big box store trees. plus they always prune the lower branches too high, I like them branching just above the knee.

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The trouble with blueberries, even then, especially if you’re not an experienced grower that knows which varieties are which species and which species do well where, is local adaptation. I consider blueberries a prime example of how you’d go wrong buying from big box stores in my location. Rabbiteyes are, by far, the best adapted type to my location, but the big box stores carry northern highbush. From what little I’ve seen of the smaller local retailers, they all sell rabbiteyes.

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