There is a segment of the population that only wants one tree, they have a good job, possibly a double income family, and when they decide on which apple is the ‘best’, because having the ‘best’,
even if it is some nebulous flowery claim by the seller is something they also value, they will pay a large amount and wait for the tree.
I sold peony roots since 2004, I am retired now, but I was a small grower compared to some, we had no other growers in our province and at the time very few in Canada. I could not possibly compete with the $5.00 price tag the big box stores offered so I went the other route, special varieties. I attracted those who have the money to buy roots of plants that were rare, I needed to import, and you could not get locally, unless you lived by me LOL. Those were priced at $45 to $120 per root For regular peonies I actually would underprice the roots compared to other online sellers, I could not bring myself to charge higher prices for something I considered middle of the road.
For me, I would not simply because I can graft. But for a good variety that survives my zone or one I cannot find in big box stores I think I would, but just once. Then I would share the heck out of it with my family and friends.
Sorry I hit reply to JVD and I cannot edit to a reply to everyone.
I am very torn about this thread. The initial post was written pushing everyone to a conclusion without being forthcoming about the information provided. $85 for the tree delivered with tax, is a whole different animal than an $85 sticker price (this was later clarified). Tax per state is different, shipping to different state is different, and at no point was even the species of the tree revealed. I don’t think I saw anyone else mention this, but shipping costs alone have also risen pretty steeply since 2019.
Not to defend the seller who was to remain anonymous, they are (likely) asking a high price. Given that they are a well known nursery, i would venture to say yes, people are paying that price. I didn’t start buying from them until 2014, and i never had a bad experience with them until 2020 when most of what i had purchased from them died. They offered me a full refund for the plants that died with no hassle. I know there are also a lot of people willing to pay higher prices for good customer service (my experience has been good, but i am sure it varies from person to person). At this point they don’t carry the things i am interested in, so i won’t be buying from them anymore. When i ordered my Maxie pear tree, I couldn’t find it from any other sellers, Stark was the only one who had it. When living in NE, they were the only ones I could get the Stark Gold sweet cherry from (a very interesting find for the time as it was from NE which no longer has any real fruit production).
I’m relatively new to growing fruit trees. I’ve usually had a garden, and grown berries, but because of my career path had moved every few years until recently. We finally moved to a fairly permanent location two and a half years ago. I like to do quite a bit of research before starting a new project, but for folks not in the know it can be challenging to find good quality information at first if you don’t know what to search for. For instance, I was aware at the time that rootstocks could be dwarf/semi-dwarf, but didn’t know about specific rootstock or their importance. These larger nurseries come up frequently in searches because of the way search algorithms work. They also tend to be more user friendly sites than more commercial-facing nurseries. I bought some of my first trees bareroot from StarkBros in the winter right before the pandemic started. The prices at the time were much lower than they are now. The plants were ok. This was also one of the few places that had things in stock during the pandemic. Since I started lurking around this forum last spring, I learned a great deal. Last fall I ordered from places like ACN, Double A vineyards, and Nourse. The quality and prices are much better, but you do typically have to order more and be more “in the know” to find and trust these places. So, I understand how someone with some, but not much, information would consider it. For instance, someone that knows “bareroot is often better than potted”, but not all the nuance. That being said , I doubt I would have ever spent that much at an online nursery for something that common. I would consider paying a higher sum for something from my local nursery if it was something that I wanted, just to support a local independent retailer or on something really interesting from an trusted online source.
i must say i agree with you here.
Especialy for an online nursery, counting the shipping cost as part of the tree is misleading.
Tree for 15$ = cheap
tree for 30 $ suddenly not so cheap. (tree 15$ shipping 15$ for example)
However most often i imagine to buy a couple tree’s and then the shipping cost gets splits between them.
I also don’t see the need to first keep the seller annonymous and then still mention them.
@TurkeyCreekTrees just wondering because of your name. Do you sell similair fruit tree’s yourself?
Are you a competing buisness?
I didnt feel like I was being misleading, I guess you can spin it that way. I guess if you made the assumption that delivery was free, and tax isnt always collected on on-line purchases.
I only mentioned them after a couple of folks had already eluded to them as being the seller. Yes we grow and sell fruit trees. No we dont see them as competition, we sell a better product at a much more reasonable price! LOL
This has been an interesting thread to read so I appreciate it being posted and all the comments from folks. It makes me think about the issue of many nurseries going out of business. I haven’t been doing this growing thing that long and I’ve noticed several nurseries either going out of business or changing their business model/shipping prices/variety mix to the level that I can no longer purchase from them. I am torn between my love of a bargain and wanting nurseries to include nice selections of bushes and trees at reasonable prices. It’s easy when you are looking for common things but when you start looking for things like black walnuts and rare persimmons you see there are only a few sources and the prices with shipping go up quickly. I never wanted to learn to graft but my thriftiness has forced me to. I can’t really blame a nursery for passing on their shipping costs or not being willing to work for peanuts because I wouldn’t do it either. On the other hand I have been really excited by the selections from fruitwood nursery and some of the small nurseries I’ve learned about on this site. Maybe it is just creative destruction moving toward new business models. Thank goodness for this site that provides so many resources and so much good info.
I started with Stark Bros, but the quality of their products has been going down and prices going up. FastGrowingTrees is even higher priced. I’ve been finding other sources through the recommendations on this site.
I went to a popular nursery here in SoCal to get a replacement Necta-Plum tree. 13 years ago I purchased one from this place, it was about 4 ft tall I believe in a 15 gal. container and it cost $49. It was a lovely tree, did very well until recently when borers decimated it. So my new one was about 18 inches tall in a 5 gal container, lots of leaves and it was $50. When I asked about the pricing and size, I was told that fruit trees are flying out of all their locations can barely keep them stocked due to home gardeners demand since COVID. I wanted a 15 gal. taller tree and they said they had none because of demand. Disappointed, but I wanted the tree and I wanted it now.
I can attest that since covid trees are going out of stock. I guess One Green World gets their tree pre-orders in mid November to December. I was checking for a miniature peach tree in January and they were all sold out of everything but a variety that is supposed to be just so so in taste. I have to wait almost a year to order one and likely longer to get it because they sold out so fast. Plants in general are just running out of stock anymore and they can’t keep up.
I have noticed inexperienced people think potted is better too. I have told my grandma that bare root fruit trees/plants are better than potted multiple times and she still goes back to thinking potted trees are the best. She is more concerned about the growth above the plants she buys than below the growth she buys. The thing is the above growth is just symptoms of the below ground growth when buying it. It you are buying a perennial you won’t be getting fruit for a year or two anyway so what matters is the root system. Plus if it is growth above ground it will lose it all come winter unless it is a evergreen so the leaves can look horrible and come back great the next year. My mulberry leaves came looking really beat up from Whitman farms last year but the winter came and now the leaves look amazing and they are already producing fruit.
Two inch caliper to 3 inch in oaks and maples and the like already were scarce before the virus arrived, the run on food and toilet paper, plus time at home helped create the desire to groW some food…and led to shortages in fruit bearing trees.
This year I have spent an obnoxious amount of money on berry bushes that look like tiny sticks. Most of the varieties I purchased would not be available at my local nursery or big box stores. Many times I was unaware at exactly how immature the specimen would be. When you buy a $20 bush at a big box store you get a 1 gallon pot. When I buy a $20 hipster bush online I get a 3inch plug and shipping is not included.
I have actually felt a little ripped off. Probably the worst offenders were the Canadian varieties of honeyberries i purchased. My boreal beauty, boreal blizzards and honeybees were nearly $20 and were 3 inch plugs. The proven winners honeyberries were still small but did not feel like a rip off.
It is pretty disappointing to get a plant that will grow to 2m tall and it comes the size of a softball. I just decided to put mine into pots for this year so they look less stupid replacing landscaping plants. I can plant them in the fall.
I purchased a few 1 gallon plants from Berries Unlimited and I was very happy with the quality and size of their product for the price.
I guess that is the price of growing hipster fruit.
AGE of plant, plus it’s relative scarcity, is reason for the price.
You go to the “box” store
and get “Maxie” or “Solo” for about $35 in gallon pots…if the supply has not been all sold in that size nationally.
I liked my 4" plugs from jung’s nursery online. Not a rip off.
i hear seeds germinate at a good rate–that is the CHEAP method of getting honeyberries>>>>but not the fast .
It makes sense that more rare varieties are more expensive. They cannot be produced at the scale needed to bring the price down because they have limited demand.
I wish I would have paid more attention to the size. $20 for a tiny plant vs $35 for a huge plant, I would pick the bigger one every time.
It is more about value rather than just price. $20 for a stick feels like bad value when $30-$35 will get you a plant that you can put in the ground and it will not look ridiculous or get stepped on without even noticing.
There’s a learning curve…you can get a gallon blueberry at a box store for $11 but you can only get a gallon honeyberry for $35…if you can even find one.
Thinking a certain amount of $$ gets a certain size plant isn’t so in this business.
I would never pay that much for a common fruit tree. I buy bareroot trees for less than $10 a piece shipped. I can wait a couple years or longer for them to start producing. I add around a dozen or so every year and now have some trees that are around 10 years old. Each year more and more of my trees are starting to produce. I figure if I can get 10 trees for the price of one over priced tree it would be stupid to order the one tree.
Burnt ridge sometimes has honeyberry liners for 5.00, I got one from them this year (can’t remember the variety). I also got some honeyberries from Jung last year when they had free shipping and 15% off. Ended up costing me about 14.40 out the door per variety. I bought all varieties that they sell except Tundra and Aurora (already have a bunch planted), and Blue Moon and Blue Velvet. I bought the latter from Ison’s because they were less expensive (I had a 10% off coupon there). This year the only companies that seem to be offering “discounts” are the fake ones that the Gurney’s family nurseries offer… but I digress.
I will admit that I spent a few coins more than I usually would on a persimmon from England’s. I want fruit and I want it soon. I won’t disclose the price because I’m a little embarrassed to have paid so much for it, but I will say that it was less than 85.00 . I know that I could have grafted it myself, but I can’t magically make the rootstock be 3 years older, so I decided to essentially buy time.
My liners from last season from Burnt Ridge for 5.00 all made it…and after being up-sized once late summer, and again this spring…are all in one gallon pots noW and looking good.
Got the Boreal Beauty and Beast from Jungs this year…they are a foot tall already.
No I definitely would not. My local big box store is selling apple trees for 110 dollars each which I thought was nuts.
I can get trees online for 20-30 dollars each all day long. Unless they are monster trees 6 feet tall or something I can’t ever see spending that unless I was desperate.
. I know that I could have grafted it myself, but I can’t magically make the rootstock be 3 years older, so I decided to essentially buy time.