I’ve ordered from both. More than once.
I’d order from either again IF THEY HAD THE BEST PRICE or an exclusive cultivar I needed/desired.
I don’t think at this point I’ll be ordering from either in the coming dormant season.
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I had a really bad experience with Burnt Ridge. They raised their S&H weeks after I ordered, but then because they were out of an item they had to re-invoice, and they charged me at the much higher rate. In other words, they violated the contract of sale. I spent an inordinate amount of time disputing with documentation the over-charge. It was mindblowing how recalcitrant they were about it.
Some of the plants were okay. The apple tree was the tiniest I’ve ever gotten with any order. (I’ve somehow managed to keep it alive.) And the myro rootstocks had terrible heat cracking. It was a struggle to find cambium to graft to on some.
NEVER AGAIN! Burnt by Burnt Ridge!
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I got a email this week I think about Burnt Ridge not carrying a tree I got this year. They auto did a substitution for me with the standard size tree. I think I had the semi dwarf Montrose Apricot and they gave me the standard of it. Luckily they did not charge me but part of me also wonders if the semi dwarf one was more expensive.
wow that is weird did they sent you invoice copy before they run the CC? opportunity to make changes such as cancelling due to the extreme difference in shipping?
I can see why certain nursery would want to charge more for shipping or more for a plant if they could. Most simply don’t do that though. I have bought plants this year which had prices skyrocket in price soon after I got them. Luckily I locked in my price with those nursery. I think I read on burnt ridge nursery that they don’t charge your card until it ships. There seems to be 3 models for nurseries. There is the pay now and lock in your price nursery like One Green World or Raintree. Then there seems to be the pay 50% to lock in your order and the other 50% later on like Trees of Antiquity. Last you have the pay later on ones that is Burnt Ridge. Burnt Ridge opened states on your website card will not be charged until your order is pulled (this is assuming you don’t pay with PayPal of course). Terms & Conditions | Burnt Ridge Nursery | Guarantee / Replacement Policy
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Rick for 40 trees I’d recommend just learning how to graft to begin with if you have the time and just order rootstock and scions (or trade for them). You could buy a mighty nice grafting setup for what you intend to spend on trees.
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I’m done buying trees from anybody, just scions now for fun. I’ll try grafting for a change. But I’m glad I did over buy at one time, I now have more citrus trees than I can eat. I bought them from Costco years ago for just $19 for a live tree, not bareroot.
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I’m glad I bought a bunch too. I am more glad because I bought before all the prices were so jacked up for the most part. Grafting seems intimidating to me which is why I have never done it. For whatever reason buying a tree or plant and testing to see if they work in a food forest setting where I am plugging in multiple trees in small spaces seems fine to me but I don’t like the idea of grafting.
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It’s my first time too, I did a bunch of graft recently, I think maybe some took, but who knows for sure. The new challenge is exciting to me, I may get carried away with it, maybe I have a tree with 32 different varieties, lol, I did see a picture of a tree with that many varieties, so that gives me an idea what to strive for.
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Perhaps you should just give it a try by cutting scion wood that you already have and trying to graft to a tree that you already have. Basic grafting supplies are fairly inexpensive and take or fail, you won’t be out all that much.
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That’s great advice.
Even with one tree, and it doesn’t have to be a fruit tree, you can practice grafting pieces of it back to itself.
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For the past several years, I have been mostly buying rootstocks, not trees. Rootstock prices are also rapidly increasing — last year Burnt Ridge price for a bunch of 10 was $30 for most varieties, this year it’s $35. However, they were the only place I could find that sells Pyrus betulaefolia rootstock (used to graft Asian pears).
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I’d much rather have an established rootstock, and scion wood, than a new tree.
Good thinking.
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Thing is everything is increasing heavily in terms of gardening. In 2020 you could buy a grafted tree for 28 dollars from Raintree. Now expect 60 dollars. A bale of peat moss was 10 dollars at Home Depot and now expect to pay 16 dollars. Fertilizer has gone up due to oil prices and shortages. The reason for the price increase is because places selling it can afford to raise prices since they are still selling more of each gardening item than they could get in. It only makes sense rootstocks and scion will fallow. It does make you think about grafting as an alternative though. Say you only need one to 3 trees (you don’t need many if grafted onto standard rootstock like bet for pears) it will likely be better just to buy the 1-3 trees than grow the rootstock. 2 trees will be about the cost of their rootstock bundle in the case you stated. I do agree Burnt Ridge has some exclusive stuff. I have not gotten a order from them but they were the only nursery with self rooted Illinois Everbearing trees I saw so I bought from them.
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Yes, you usually don’t need 10 trees, but that’s not a problem. Say, I buy a bunch of 10 rootstocks, which now costs $35 plus $29 S&H, for a total of $64. I graft them and grow for a year or two. Say, 7 out of 10 survive. I keep two best ones for myself and sell five locally at $40 per tree. That’s $200 to cover my expenses (price of rootstocks plus S&H plus costs of water, pots, compost plus maybe cost of scions if I needed to buy them, etc.), and I end up with two free trees of varieties that I want on a rootstock that I want. I don’t turn this into a business, so I usually don’t do more than 10 or 20 trees at once, but it’s nice to cover my expenses and get (practically) free trees.
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A lot can be accomplished for cheap, if you have the time (and don’t put a dollar figure on that).
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Agreed on a lot can be accomplished for cheap if you have the time but people only have so much time. You can spend 64 dollars on stitching for a needlepoint ornament or spends days or weeks stitching it yourself, you can spend hours every week cleaning our spend 110 dollars to have a person come out and clean, you can pay 10 dollars a meal minimum for going out or spend 30 minutes cooking yourself and the list can go on forever. Selling on places like Facebook marketplace or Craigslist takes a lot of time itself. I have sold on those myself and while the listing itself only takes a few minutes shifting through all the scammers and responding to the emails/texts is really time consuming. I think there are so many scammers on places like Craigslist and Facebook Marketplace that Craigslist has warnings like always meet in a secure location and not to ship to people. For that reason I have stopped selling low value items on craigslist because it was not worth my time to drive somewhere and meet under 100 dollars unless it is taking up a bunch of space. I make 25 dollars a hour before taxes so if something sells for 40 dollars I may as well work an extra hour then schedule to meet, put extra money on gas and miles on my car. That is my situation though. Same with say stitching a needlepoint ornament. I would rather work a few extra hours and get the needlepoint ornament stitched then spend a week of my own time because it is a one time payment for 3 hours worth of work. Something like a repeated payment like cooking or cleaning I would rather do myself though. All people’s priorities though.
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I don’t buy nor sell from craiglist nor eBay. Only recently I ventured to buy something on Etsy. It’s a disaster, I considered that’s donation to the Latvia people. Now I’m buying something again from Etsy but this time this person is in San Diego. We will see.
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There’s absolutely no sense doing that if it’s a chore for you. It only makes sense to do if it’s something you enjoy doing anyway. I enjoy grafting and caring for trees, as I guess many other people on this forum do (otherwise they wouldn’t be here). I never even tried to do a needlepoint ornament in my entire life. And my hourly rate at work is $105.
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I’m retired so my hourly rate is $0, lol.
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