Since I had my best percentages ever this year (at least before losing 4 or 5 to root rot in June in containers due to too much rainfall) … and most of my roots coming from Burnt Ridge, (a few from Cummins and a few from Fedco), I have no complaints with my B.R. stock.
But, shipments from the northwest to the east have to travel through some adverse/freezing weather sometimes–I would look at things like the tracking information and see back what the conditions were at the time along the UPS or FedEx routes.
I just thought that I should come back to this thread and say it changed my mind about trying Burnt Ridge. I placed a small order with them in late Nov. for spring delivery. I hope I won’t be disappointed.
I was pleased last year with both the apple and pear rootstock I received. So much so that I made another order with them this year. I sure hope that this years rootstock will be as good as last years. I got apple, pear and plum this year!
They were confirming my order today by email and informed me that they only had 3 of the 20 Ussarian pear rootstocks that I had ordered in stock so I hurried and called to get substitutions. I went with 17 standard pear rootstocks. It was about all they had left that was even close to what I wanted. I sure hope they work out right for me… they did answer fairly quickly on the phone and the woman was very helpful. Just hope that I didn’t booboo by getting standard stock. BET that I ordered last year is almost standard so hopefully they will all be similar sized and they told me that both Asian and European pears should be fine on these. I just hope so…
They confirmed my order today too. They had to bump me down a size on one of the shrubs that I ordered, but I’m okay with that, I just hope everything comes healthy.
I had a huge order, and they sent stint good, a lot of mediocre, and 1/4 of it was terrible.
I’m ordering early enough to buy from England’s Orchard (Kentucky, and they seem to have everything desirable up north) or 39th Parallel (great for what they have, heirloom apples and pears mostly).
I changed my request twice via email, and both times before the end of the next day they acknowledged and gave an updated invoice. My experience with them has been great in that regard, including when I’d had a problem with a tree.
Most impressive was the American persimmon rootstock with lots of roots. The Jujube looks okay, but the roots seem twisted and bound. I’ll see what’s its like when I try to untangle to plant, but in spite of being bear root, it seems like it may have been growing in a very small square container.
I didn’t know what to expect from the 2 year Russian mulberry seedlings. They aren’t super impressive specimens, and the roots were dry. But they were also super inexpensive. I was hoping to be wowed, but seems fair. They are small diameter for my scions.
I bought a 10 pack of mulberry from them assuming they were graftable (think someone had a pic last year that showed them to be pretty nice size as seen here by @TNHunter : Mulberry cuttings - #4 by TNHunter ).
maybe too small if they are the ones on the right?
Yeah, I think I saw that picture and its probably what inspired me to order. There is a luck of the draw element in play here I think. When I look at TNHunter’s, for some reason I focus on the roots and thing 2 trees. Divided in 4, my tree on the left probably fits in with those better, although the caliper is smaller.
For the jujube I probably should have asked if they could pick one with good roots - and perhaps describe what I mean by that. For the rootstocks for a few dollars each, that might be pushing it.
@Heath , yes the two small ones on the right are the mulberries. Judging how my grafted root cuttings have grown, the one on the left should get the scion that I’m most interested in.
I’ll probably still graft them. Maybe I’ll try a new technique, as opposed to whip and tongue which is what I would normally do grafting to a whip like these.
BTW, the jujube will be an interesting experiment because apparently I ordered Honeyjar from 2 different nurseries. I can’t remember if I did that knowingly. We’ll see which does better.
I think the jujube will be fine, but I ended up cutting the bottom quarter of that tangle of roots off, which was probably took more than 1/2 off the length of most of the respective roots if they could have been untangled. It was a complete knot. Then I spread all the remaining ones out to near horizontal. It was also planted pretty deep at the nursery compared to where the roots originated. I planted it to just cover the roots.
so I hurried and called to get substitutions. I went with 17 standard pear rootstocks. It was about all they had left that was even close to what I wanted. I sure hope they work out right for me… 
they did answer fairly quickly on the phone and the woman was very helpful. Just hope that I didn’t booboo by getting standard stock. BET that I ordered last year is almost standard so hopefully they will all be similar sized and they told me that both Asian and European pears should be fine on these. I just hope so… 
