Honeyberryusa order - Juliet

This was the Juliet order i received from honeyberryusa ( kind of small). Snow storms plaqued the north this year. These will need grown out a while before they are put out. Those cost around $150

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Clark, that is a lot of $ for those skinny things. Wow!

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Hopefully with your green thumb those little plants will become bushes in no time.

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Yes in addition to the $150 there was $30 shipping. Good plants grow quickly so time will tell soon. They did say 4"-8" size but several of these are 3".

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Like Tony, I am sure Clark will get those skinny things up and growing in no time.

I am just hope my Juliet will has suckers this year.

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Wow Clark, I can’t even put a like on them!! That there’s some slim pickn’s boy! (Must have been a hard winter up there too).

Still, I’ve gotten puny CJ’s that took off like crazy, but I do think my two Juliet’s were more like 12" from soil line of their little pot to tip.

They’ll do fine for ya though I bet, and it’s not like you’re gonna run out of cherries in the meantime :smile:

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Well, they did say 4-8", so that is about what I would have expected. They are obviously in high demand. Just enjoy them.

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I think I got my Carmine Jewel (from a different source) in a 3 inch pot, lol. No worries as he’s fruiting size now.

But they really can’t take drought as little babies. That’s the only thing, imho.

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Ten (if I see that right) for $150 seems steep, especially for that size of plants. Juliet seems to be pretty vigorous growers, so those should take off.

My plant was put in the ground two years ago, and is now over 5ft tall, although it was bigger and had massive roots. It flowered a little bit and actually has a few cherries on it now, whether they stay on is another story.

They look like the Crimson Passion I got from them two years ago, it has since passed on to the great cherry patch in the sky, hope yours has a better fate!

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I got a beat up HBUSA box that had been mended in transit. 5"x 5"x48 containing a $750 order. Did not bother opening, just tossed it cold storage. original order was for 6 to 12" then I made a slight modification and they changed it all to 4" to 12" I’m sure they graded on the small size. I ordered extra thinking friends would want them. I doubt that’s the case this late in the year with pathetic looking plants.

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It was difficult to “like” that pic Clark, they do seem small for the price, but the demand is definitely there for them across the Nation. I put a like on though because Juliet for me has been super vigorous, already 7ft tall in 3rd year, only 2nd year in ground. It bloomed and set about a gallon of fruit last year, and bloomed and set very heavily this year. While my 2 Carmine Jewels are healthy and growing, they remain about 3 feet tall and 3 feet across, short round balls with 4 inch trunks. Given your talent, I bet those Juliet are up and fruiting in 2 years!

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The best we can do in this case is work with these plugs and see what happens. Juliet has very good genetics but I wanted to post this because other growers will experience this same thing. We need to figure out long term as a fruit growing group what works the best for us. It would be a difficult challenge for a new fruit grower to get this package in the mail and not have on hand the things they need. There was not a plant over 4" in the package but most of us would think there would be five 8" plants and 3 scrawny plants. Whats worse is i think a lot of this is about shipping costs and high demand for juliet! Juliet should demonstrate that its a tough plant but the plants in general are not in great shape. The plants are at a huge disadvantage. Hopefully with a little tlc they will be ok. In my area on a normal year these plants would be in really big trouble. This is why we do these test crops before we order 1000+ plants from a nursery. I wanted to plant out a field of at least 2 acres of them next year but in this case that wont work for me as i plant out bushes now. Eventually i need 5-10 acres of cherry bushes to supply demand in this area. As your aware @39thparallel is a nursery / fruit grower who orders thousands of trees and bushes and was doing a test as well to determine what he will order from them in the future as well. Thankfully we did not combine an order for 5 or 6 thousand plants and attempt to field plant these! The need for sour cherries everywhere is very high for wine, cooking, juice etc… my buyers all have one word for cherries which is they want “MORE”! Long term i hope i find a supplier for larger juliet plants at a reasonable price. In the meantime i will evaluate these and determine how they adapt to Kansas. I will post later on if my efforts work out at this thread Juliet Cherry

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Are you going to plant them in the field or pot them up and baby them along this year?

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I’ve found that the Juliet seem to preform a lot like the CJ’s in terms of vigor and such.

Here’s what my two looked like when they arrived in 4/16.

And how they’ve progressed to current, on the far right.

Clearly my small experiment with 5-CJ’s, the 2-failed Crimson Passion (now leaving blank spaces - may just let Juliet suckers fill in) and the 2 Juliet’s are a world of difference in comparison with the ambitious undertaking you describe Clark.

In a mass-planting they wouldn’t be afforded the TLC a backyard guy can treat them to, and your brutal Kansas weather will demand a robust plant.

I’m putting my money on the little 3-4" guys though - I bet they get it done!

And if by chance something crops up, I have every confidence you’ll come up with the right solution.

You do know when this all works out like you’re planning that you’re going to have to invest in one of those high-dollar overhead mechanical pickers…, may as well start thinking on a name for it like they did up there at U of S (…Or get more grand kids :grin:)

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We spent 20 each for little dormant sticks like those when we bought Juliet too. We dug big plants to move after 2 seasons in the nursery, and had to pull cherries off em too after they came out.
Juliet is a good tall grower, but in all fairness Romeo plants are shorter partly because they were at the end of the nursery row and got grazed on a few times by marauding sheep.

I hope they do well for you.

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I purchased some Juliet and Romeo bushes from Henry Fields/Gurneys a couple years ago that came with monstrous roots and about 3ft tall. I think Honeyberryusa also was shipping the same size plants that year, I think there was even a thread here about how biggest plants were that year from all sellers. Demand really must be high if the plant size has dropped that dramatically.

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@IowaJer
Ive already got a place for the picker in the barn. They were $30,000 last time i checked. The same picker can be used for aronia. We will see if I decide to expand soon but what im seeing now with plants indicates its not the time. Its an experiment right now.
@39thparallel
I did decide to field plant them and added heavy amounts of wood chips around them. See if these little bushes have what it takes. Keep in mind im thinking how could i plant 1000+. The amount of work increases tremendously between a 8"-1 foot plant and a 3" plant. The price of $15 is steep for the plant but we do need to ask are they paying a royalty. If the plants perform the cost may be worth it. When i got carmine jewell from Gurneys years ago they were 4" and they grew quickly but were in much better condition than these.
@Poorwolf
I agree carmine jewell are very slow to start which is one of the many reasons why im trying juliet. Carmine jewell seem yo suffer extreme transplant shock and they sit in the ground a year or two and do very little. Once they establish they are unstoppable! Had i known then what i know now i would have planted more carmine jewell at the time but it was an experiment.
@mrsg47
Your right that is a lot of $'s for these bushes but lets not judge what i got for my money yet until we put them to the test and see what we have
@mamuang @tonyOmahaz5
My green thumb sometimes fails me due to time constraints and i was not planning on having the tiime to baby these but i will do my best.
@northwoodswis4 @Cafeaulait
Your right i should have expected the minimum and not the maximum. I have a tendency to think of everything as better than what it is or will be but the reality is most people never heard the saying " under promise over deliver" but its something i live by. In this case im underwhelmed.
@subdood_ky_z6b
I agree on your points about juliet and the price. Crimson pasdion was one bush im glad i missed out on. I think wowza that gurneys and henry fields offers may be a darn good new cherry but i always wait a while for price to come down and reviews to roll in. Carmine jewell i grew when it first entered our country but id seen the Canadians experience already.
@joleneakamama
Thats a good sign if you bought the same sized plants and tbey made it! I feel better since you said that. Ive got a feeling im going to be dusting a lot of grass off them tbis year!
@roth2000
Your right i think demand is increasing and nurseries are getting greedy and cashing in on huge profits.

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Have you thought about ordering direct from Canada? I looked into it, there are a couple companies that were actually (I thought) quite reasonable. If my memory serves me right, they would ship CJ, Romeo and Juliet to the US. I want to say it was PPS that I contacted, but I remember there were two that would ship…

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@Amy
I did at one time about 10 years ago. In order for me to buy from Canada it took a $10,000 import liscense. Did not want to spend the money

It is very hard to import because of concerns over a prunus virus. This may be why varieties are slow to release in the US. Is what I was told is you could thy moving them across the boarder yourself and take your chances.

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