First, hello to all my old friends. I’m sorry I have disappeared for the last year or so and it has nothing to do with the site or any of you….just busy with life. I’ve missed you all.
ANYWHO…. Vaughn nursery has long been my favorite source for fruit trees, being by far the cheapest and also having good quality trees that have always been true to label for me. They have long been a wholesale nursery with a policy of requiring bundles of 10 for any one variety and ask you order several bundles. However, for long term customers they would often make exceptions and fill small orders. However, in the last couple years they have somewhat tightened up and stuck to their wholesale/large orders only policy.
I’ve developed a great relationship with the owner over the years and because of our long-term relationship AND the fact that my orders always have 10 or more trees (though admitedly not 10 of a kind which they try to require), he has usually taken my orders. He also knows about this site (growingfruit.org) and my presence on it, so when I called this year to try and get him to fill an order, he specifically asked me to come here and deliver a message from him (Daniel, the owner).
He said that he is getting more and more requests from backyard growers- many who say they came to Vaughn after reading good things here on GrowingFruit.org, and he is feeling very bad about saying no, but really wants me to tell you all why he is having to almost completely stop taking small orders.
First, this year he has ZERO TREES FOR SALE…not for wholesale, not for small retail. None. He had more than 2,000 grafted trees (grafted last season) die during the hard freeze that lasted 2 nights here in TN. It was below 0 and wiped him out. Obviously he is devastated. So first and foremost, he asked me to let everyone know that.
But beyond that, he explained that his big problem with small orders the last couple of years have been his shippers. He said that very often when he would fill an order that was just a small number of trees and only a couple hundred dollars or less, his shippers would take the order, give him a price, and then upon delivery they would come back and hit him with some kind of “undersize order” penalty and charge up to $500 more than what they originally asked for. Now, I don’t know how they can do that if they gave a quote, nor do I know who his wholesale shipping company is that he uses for small orders that is doing this. But I certainly believe him and can understand how costly that could be. He said shipping is by far his biggest reason for not taking small orders these days, but also explained what we can all understand…..which is that it’s very hard to grow rootstocks, have them grafted, plant them, let them grow, dig them up, sort and package them, pay for shipping boxes and materials, and ship them out when he is selling his grafted trees for $8-$10 each. We all know that many places are getting $50 or more these days. So I get that.
Finally, he said that as much as he hates to admit it, his smallest customers are the ones who take the most of his time. He said a guy buying 5 trees is far more likely to call and complain about something or to kill a tree and then ask him to replace it, but when he sells 3,000 trees to a commercial orchard or retailer, he rarely hears from them again. He says people are just harder to please these days than they have ever been and that its a phenomenon that has only recently been so bad. I know in my own work the public have definately become much harder to deal with, so I have seen this too- though I don’t know why.
All that being said, he wanted all of you to know that he genuinely feels bad about having to stick to his wholesale business and not help small, backyard growers like us. Hearing him talk about it was touching. He genuinely feels bad about not taking small orders from people on this site who just want to grow fruit as a hobby, and that if he could make it work he’d love to do that. But his entire business model is set for wholesale and he doesn’t want to change that after so many years as a wholesaler.
I’m sure some of you will find this disappointing, as do I, and some may even be cynical of his reasons, but I hope not. The whole purpose in him asking me to come here is that he feels very guilty about not taking your orders and wants you to know why. I understand and hopefully you will to.
take care,
Kevin