These trees are thriving in their new location. Very nice fruit set this year. You will have to wait for another few months to hear back on fruit quality and taste. I am expecting a nice bumper crop on all 4 trees this summer- Scarlet Halo, Pink Halo, Rapunzel(Snack Time), Honey Halo!
It is great to have you here on our fruit growing forum! Personally, I am interested in trying a dozen or so varieties of Burchell’s stone fruits, and I know others on our forum who have similar interest, however the main barrier that I have now is the very expensive shipping from Tomorrow’s Harvest. Shipping cost for one tree is almost the same as the cost of the tree itself and it does not go down significantly with more trees… Nurseries like Bay Laurel, Peaceful Valley and others in the eastern US charge about $30 for five trees, which is very reasonable. Another barrier, was the lack of sufficient description of the different Burchell varieties, but now I see Tomorrow’s Harvest website has added some good descriptions. A third shortcoming that I heard more than once is mislabeled trees, I don’t know if this improved or not. Finally, I also heard that customer service over the phone was not that great, no first hand experience though. Please don’t take this as being negative, I am trying to help by highlighting opportunities for improvement.
I grew a graft of Honey Halo in Delaware, and the fruit is fantastic. I heard similar feedback on varieties like Freckle Face, September Honey and Snack Time.
I would be thrilled to have Burchell varieties available to us on a cost basis similar to the alternatives (and/or in local nurseries). I had noticed at Andy’s orchard tastings that the Burchell varieties are often mind-blowing in how good they are. Especially nectarines!
Hi all, i am thrilled to see the nice job you are doing with your fruit trees Girly, great fruit set on reasonable height trees. I have had the Rapunzel at Andy’s and became an immediate fan. Now that i am working with the entire collection I find a world of different flavored fruit than what i was familiar with at Dave Wilson Nursery. I am looking forward to evaluating them all and sharing my results.
Girly I look forward to hearing how your selections turn out for you
Cost is a difficult thing i will admit. I am now running the Website, the sales to the Independent Garden Centers and the Commercial Sales. All have different considerations and pricing. Because of the cost of bare rooting due to the limited market time and the cost of cold storage and the losses incurred from planting after trees have been in cold storage I have choose to plant all trees right away and sell them early in paper pots, so they can be stored or planted. As well as plastic pots for shipping after they are totally rooted. I know that it is not the most equitable way for repricing but it is my opinion that it is the best way to keep our costs lower. We than can price our product competitively. I know that is does not work for all and for that i am sorry.
I noticed that Burchell started selling bare root trees online at Tomorrow’s Harvest, and those are competitively priced at ~$30/tree. The problem is in shipping cost, which is almost the same as the price of the tree itself! If other retailers are able to ship for much lower price, Burchell should be able to do the same and reach much wider customer base.
Ahmad, thank you so much for your input. I would like to say that I am surprised about your review, but in fact i have heard it all and am desperately working on making corrections. I have a great team at Burchell Nursery, and we are focused on the improvements needed. I have begun to rewrite the descriptions beginning with the ones that I know best. I tried to cover my reasons for not desiring to do the less pricy bareroot and in that regard my good friends at Bay Laurel, Peaceful Valley, Raintree, and others will remain dependable suppliers during the bare root season. I do realize that shipping to the east coast can be expensive. We do ship 2 to a box to at least help a little. The trees are #3s and between 3 to 4 feet with most being 4 feet. We seem to appeal mostly for the unusual varieties we carry and i can assure you that will continue to grow as i am in contact with many of my friends.
Wonderful to hear that Honey Halo is doing so well for you in Delaware with no bacterial leaf spot i assume? Freckle Face is a top taste winner of the Dave Wilson Nursery taste tests. It just was a well-kept secret,until now. If it and Snack time do well, you are in for a real picking treat
Ahmad, I am chasing your responses, The Bare root we carry is shipped in a paper pot in the winter. We plant up all the bare root in paper pot to make them available to both those that want to plant right away or those that need to wait so the tree is safely healed into the soil in the pot
@jxz7245 Snack Time from Burchell = Rapunzel from Andy.
Andy had ordered a Snack Time but received a surprise yellow nectarine that he named Rapunzel.
I ordered a Snack Time tree and also received the same yellow nectarine that Andy did. My tree has fruited and its the same yellow nectarine as Andys Rapunzel.
Honey Halo is another yellow donut nectarine (very good flavor per @Ahmad ) more higher chill and fruits later in the season. This is not available at Andys.
Hi Mamuang, September Free, is one that i will be watching this year. I have never tried it. i will report regularly on varieties that i experience for the first time this year on our Facebook and Instagram page
Last year, I kept my September Free in a 15 gal pot. I had a hard time figuring out when and how much I should water it. The tree produced 3-4 fruit. The fruit tasted sweet but the texture was somewhat rubbery. I blamed it on my inconsistent watering. The color of flesh was deep orange, very pretty.
I moved it in ground last fall. It flowered and set fruit this year (not many). I hope I could protect the fruit against all kinds of pests we have here.
Ed, I am glad to hear that you are working hard on improving the (backyard) customer experience with Burchell…
If Burchell can sell its trees through those retailers, that would really be great; from a business perspective it is a win win, since each party would be focused on what it does best (retailers on retailing and Burchell on growing trees and developing new varieties).
Regarding Honey Halo, I only cropped it for one year from a single graft, but I loved its taste! It is low acid, yellow flesh nectarine, but has some interesting flavor notes that I didn’t find in Honey Blaze for instance (which is a great low acid fruit). Bacterial spot is a nasty disease, but I have been able to have it under control with low rate copper spray, and last year I switched to oxytetracycline which did a good job without the leaf injury that copper usually causes. Since I spray for it, I can’t tell if Honey Halo is resistant or not.
Pluots (some are more susceptible than others; GeoPride was the worst) were more difficult for me to keep protected from Bacterial Spot since they seemed much more sensitive to Copper injury than nectarines.
Good to hear, we can compare notes when the September Free comes ripe this year. I have never had it as i can recall. Container growing of deciduous trees can be tricky more so than many other types of fruit.
We will work to get varieties into the better online bareroot suppliers. At this point i am reluctant to get too aggressive until i have a better idea of what we have. As you have pointed out success with Honey Halo and with average care for your area, i add that to my collection of notes to review and evaluate the real jewels in the Burchell collection of which there are many, at least i am convinced. Love Geo pride sorry to hear that it doesn’t work for you.
