There are a few rules that carriers can use to not deliver packages to someone’s front porch. The address needs to be less than a 1/4 mile long, has to have a way to turn around without backing up (carriers are told to never back up in academy) and if there are animals outside the carrier can scan things animal interference. If a package was too big the carriers in my office would also refuse to deliver it but that was more so due to their laziness from my understanding. Rural carriers are paid on evaluation and not hourly so it is in their best interest to be able to can every parcel they can as packages take the longest to deliver. Mail takes seconds per house but packages take minutes. When I am alone on Saturday I will do the letters and it will take me a hour and something to do hundreds to over a thousand letters sometimes up to 2,000 letters but 100 packages takes me 2-3 hours. Like I said I am not dismounting and bringing the letters up a long driveway so it would take the carriers even longer. That is why carriers will try to take out all the packages they can from routes on the rural side. City carriers are paid hourly and that is why it is not ad evident with this type of thing happening.
That makes sense.
A nice little nursery in Maine. I talked to the owner and will probably order a couple of pears, a plum and a peach. Prices are pretty fair but shipping is pretty high at $80. I called to talk to the owner and they said that they ship with large roots and pack them in moist stuffs… so the packages are heavy. I asked about shipping and he said that it doesnt matter to them USPS, UPS or FedEx whatever i want. That was refreshing.
Take a look and maybe something you have been looking for like Kosui pear which is pretty hard to find right now. They have some other interesting pears as well.
I thought I recognized the name. These folks bought winter cove farm a former fruit tree nursery. Haven’t done business with them but glad to hear it was a pleasant experience 
I was going to tag you and @steveb4 but i forgot to.
Yes he said his favorite peach in that location is Sugar Giant and the Red Clapps pear is doing great for them there… both have threads on here as well as Kosui pear and Vision plum that they carry.
I think they have alot more than their site suggests as they are sold out of alot of things…
You can find most of what they sell online but you would have to buy from several nurseries to do so…which made the shipping cost make sense to me.
Regardless he was very nice to talk to and i will likely order a couple of things that i dont have.
On the flipside i have a couple of orders at Ison’s and talking to them has been impossible for two months. They do not answer any of my emails and i have tried to call about 15 times. They have a great reputation and i am sure that i will get what i ordered…but their customer service has been a 0/10 for me.
They post on FB several times a day but cannot answer the phone or emails…which is strange.
I posted a link to some raspberries that were a good deal on Ebay a couple of weeks ago. I received my order and they were wineberries. I messaged the owner and they said that their nephews must have shipped the wrong thing. (How do you ship someone wineberry plants that you dont sell)? Anyways i asked for them to do the right thing and send me what i paid for. They rapidly replied back that first thing monday morning they would ship out the correct plants.
One week has passed…nothing arrived and they have stopped replying.
I have had really good success with Ebay/Etsy but these guys are fraudsters.
I think they messed up with the cheap pricing and free shipping and then found a way out by sending me wineberries… anyways im gonna get my money back and give them some grief.
Im going to Take It To The Limit One More Time - Eagles
The good thing for buyers on Ebay is if the items arrives not as described or broken you can file that on your return and the seller has to accept it as well as pay return postage. I think the only issue is you have 3 days to send it back and they can give you a ground shipping label hoping you don’t have a box. I had to do this last Christmas. I bought a crystal Christmas tree and the part that holds the Christmas tree had fallen off because the seller did not protect it in transit. When I looked at it the Christmas tree had many holes on it that were not really shown on the listing. The seller had put it in a small box with no cushioning/padding. I took a picture of the holes in it and how it was in 2 pieces. The seller was furious stating they had been selling on Ebay for over 20 years and accusing me of lying stating it was in like new condition when they sent it. They had to accept it though because of Ebay policy. I guess they have the power to blacklist you from their shop but do you really want to buy from someone who sent you a broken item or the wrong item? A lot of times you hear about sellers complaining about getting scammed but you never hear about the buyers getting scammed.
Im about done with my orders for the year…
I ordered about $3XX worth of trees from Bay Laurel Nursery… none of them leafed out except for one. Im guessing due to them shipping them dormant from a cooler in January…plus my chill hours it was too much? I have emailed them about 2 weeks ago…no response.
One of the trees i wanted was a Arctic Glo and GrowOrganic had a deal so i went ahead and bought it along with a couple of others… they shipped it in full bloom last month… roots were dry…so im guessing that killed it. It hasnt showed any signs of life…with diligent watering.
So thats two Artic Glos… so i ordered another from OGW… it hasnt shipped yet… but one of the Asian Pears i ordered from them a month ago arrived with fireblight. It is DOA. Those were the smallest trees ive ever received…in 4 inch pots with dry rotted roots and a tiny stick of a graft. Hoping the other lives but its touch and go.
I placed 3 orders with Isons. One is still pending from October 2023… i have emailed about it with zero response…except for their corporate reply. I have called twice about it… once it was told that i was in a cold zone the other time was 3 weeks ago that it would ship that week. I ordered two Asian pears and both are DOA. The roots were the worst i have ever received…jet black nubs. The trees must have gotten frozen or something in their coolers. The worst customer service i have encountered ever…
St Lawrence Nursery- very nice trees and very well shipped. Excellent experience.
Stark Bros. I know some folks have issue with them but they send me nice trees with nice roots and they are just breaking bud. Always an easy transaction and communication with tracking numbers etc.
Gurneys- Same as Starks… i have no issues with them and i get what i pay for.
Ebay- i got burned for the first time and it was a very small amount… like $10. But i had to go thru all of the paces for the shipper to send me a label for return which they didnt… they closed the case without refunding me…i guess the shop closed up due to ripping off about a dozen or so folks. No worries… but ive always had good luck with Ebay before… with many hundreds of transactions.
Edible Landscaping- happy with what he sent me… i do not understand most of their new website…and its confusing. Its a hassle really. He upgraded some of the stuff i ordered… but again i dont understand the 4i or 3s stuff or whatever it was with the red X. I just ordered what was available. Good guy…nice plants…excellent transactions.
Raintree- i have stuff coming from them… to replace the Bay Laurel stuff. Likely more DWN stuff.
Im probably not going to ask for refunds on any of the dead stuff… Bay Laurel has strange policies on their shipping and its probably my fault for accepting those trees in January. GrowOrganic…i think they had good intentions… Isons- i think they knew better but i dont want to deal with them…to be honest i cant…they dont answer my emails and the person on the phone never knows anything. OneGreenWorld- i have an issue with those rice hulls that they use… they have sent me alot of stuff with dry rotted roots that are under those rice hulls. Thats just how they do things and i guess thats why i usually order 3 of whatever and hope that one lives. Im upset that i paid good money for those twigs of Asian Pears…but they wont get much more of my money.
I had a good run of box store trees- some from Menards, some from Home Depot, Some from Lowes and some from Rural King. Mostly things that i never would have bought online or things that actually cost more with shipping online…
So long story short i have alot more trees and canes than i did… some bumps in the road that cost me money… but overall im happy and moving onward with Growing (more) Fruit.
OGW trees have always been tiny little things like that for me, but the grafts have always been good and they have always lived… except for this year. I got a tiny potted Cardinal persimmon this winter that didn’t leaf out and a grape that was DOA. As to trees that actually leafed out, I got a very small Raja Asian pear whip on BET that has already doubled in size this season. And an Empress Gee jujube that was about 6 inches with roots that would fit in a shot glass, but it’s sending out a primary shoot now. And then the mystery – a bare root Chojuro Asian pear that was probably the biggest and best tree that I’ve ever gotten from them – almost 4 feet tall with good branching and good roots. Here it is after just a few weeks in the ground:
No idea why I hit the jackpot with the Chojuro. It wasn’t advertised any differently. It is probably two years ahead of the others out of the gate.
I got two Asian pears and a persimmon from them several years ago and those ended up being the nicest new trees of the season for me. But then they failed to ship a muscadine that I’d been on a waitlist for and finally been able to order. I emailed them about it, they didn’t respond, and I forgot about it. Then, almost two years later, I ordered something else from them. They contacted me, apologized about the muscadine they discovered they had never shipped, and shipped it with my new order. So I consider it a wash – at any rate, the error was clearly due to mistake rather than dishonesty.
That’s been my experience, too, but I hate that have a strictly-observed policy of not telling me what rootstock my trees are on. That relegates them to nursery-of-last-resort.
I have generally been happy with my orders from EL except for two purported Gerardi mulberries that… weren’t. That’s a big time-waster. Also, one time I ordered two Asian pears on callery – I very explicitly wanted callery – and the tags came saying OHxF-87. The trees are doing well and appear to be true-to-type, though. In general, I consider them a good nursery with a good selection and good prices. That said, I agree that their new website is a tragedy. I can’t make heads or tails of it.
New to me this season was Grandpa’s. I ordered three sour cherries and a Bell pear from them this year – my first order from that nursery. I was pretty impressed. Rather more expensive than average, including the shipping, but all four of the trees were great quality, 3 to 4 feet tall, maybe 1/2 inch to 5/8 inch caliper with branching and good roots, and breaking bud soon after planting. They were the standout this year for quality. And I ordered them late, too, so presumably those trees were the dregs.
I was lucky with Ison’s last Spring (2023) when they shipped me 3 Asian pears, all 3 survived the winter and 2 actually have some tiny fruits this year. StarkBros also have good trees at decent prices, I got 4 jujubes from them and only one didn’t survive last winter. Edible Landscaping has really good trees at decent prices but their shipping is expensive and it’s best if you can make a trip and pick them up.
A few years ago I ordered from Ison’s and they ran a Black Friday sale of 10% off. I emailed to cancel my old order and create a new one and I called them but they never answered either. Bay Laurel most of their stuff came out with me last year but they did not make it through the winter but most stuff was a gamble given zone hardiness too as I am now zone 6 but was zone 5 before. I don’t think we had a particularly bad winter though. All my experiences with Grow Organic have been bad personally. Gurneys I have the issue of a lot of their stuff they will not ship to my state. They refuse to ship pretty much any stone fruit to CO. Ebay has been hit or miss with any product honestly. I have flat out had sellers scam me by sending a package and it was not what it was. Last Christmas I ordered a crystal ornament (not cheap by the way) and the seller failed to package it right and it came totally broken into pieces. I did a return right away for item damaged and said the item was broken into pieces and not protected in shipping at all. The Ebay seller then sent me a message stating they had been selling for many years and they had never had a issue and that they packaged it well as well as that it was not broken when they sent it. Of course they sent it in a priority box with wrapping paper around it with a ground label and gave me a ground label to send it back. If you go to Ebay Reddit that seems to be a trend. Blame the customer seems to be the Ebay seller modo.
From my experience with One Green World they are either great or they are not. It is something like my fig tree that just keeps on kicking or you get dead trees that do not come out of dormancy. I have had many trees that just never bud out from One Green World. I bought 3 or 4 or maybe even 5 pawpaw and 1 honey babe peach tree from One Green World last year. Only 1 pawpaw came out but did not last. I took pictures of them all but for some reason I got something like 40 credits. I tried to use it on a chestnut tree this year and they emailed me in March or April they did not have enough and would need to cancel. Luckily they were able to turn it into a cash transfer so I just bought it for cheaper from Burnt Ridge.
I’ve ordered from just about everyone and I’m done with online ordering. The last two years I’ve just bought 6-7 foot potted trees from Lowes for $30, then grafted them to the variety I wanted. About the same price as on line, but it’s a 6-7 foot potted tree that shortcuts a couple years of growth.
Gurney’s Nursery trees have been okay for me. Their other products- shrubs, plants, etc., have been very poor. I just bought one apple tree and it looked fine. I bought a few packs of seeds and ordered some tomato plants. I paid $7.99 and $8.99 for each of them. They came packed like they were some sort of plastic part instead of a plant. The roots were only about 1" around and 1" in length. The label on the plant was longer than the roots. They were the smallest roots I have ever seen on a tomato plant that was actually for sale. Definitely not worth $8 and $9 each worth. They are worth maybe, maybe $1. I will not be buying any more tomato plants from Gurney’s.
I asked about buying from Gurney’s years ago on Reddit. At the time I was planning to buy asparagus crowns because I think they have the jump crowns which allows you to skip a year of waiting. The people who answered said they were expensive for what they were selling. Years later I bought asparagus crowns for 3.99 for 10 crowns a piece from Stark Bros when they went on sale and just bought enough for free shipping. I have made use of that many crowns anyway. In terms of roots you would be surprised what nursery try to get away with. I bought a jumbo size chestnut from Burnt Ridge this year and paid a pretty penny for it. It was massive but had a little strong of a root for a root system. So while big it will need to develop a root system and I paid some $$$ for it. Funnily I think my other chestnut I got with a 1 foot size had more of a root system. I see green on both so hopefully they come out and grow.
I really appreciate that this thread has received so much feedback. It seems pretty clear that many of the big stores don’t seem to offer a high quality plant for the premium price they charge. I know it’s easy to knock the bad orders, but does anyone have great experiences to share about smaller nurseries which SHOULD be considered?
@Buzzferver at Perfect Circle Farm sent me some great hard to find persimmon scion and appears to have some trees in stock.
https://www.etsy.com/shop/GreenAnoleFarms
Has a sweet selection, very healthy plants, and a lot of hard to find stuff
https://www.etsy.com/shop/TropicalFruitGarden
Super healthy plants, shipped quick and packed well
Whitman Farms sent me a great Morus Nigra, and Lucile was a pleasure to speak with. JFE always sent me great plants. OGW has always sent me good healthy plants. Madison Citrus over-delivers on size and vigor. McKenzie farms is great, great people and great selection. Edible landscaping as someone mentioned their site is a mess, but the plants they’ve sent me have been great. Rain tree has always sent me good plants but I hesitate to shop from them only due to their very impossible to know ship schedule. It always takes a very very long time to get anything from them, it’s been as much as 8 months. With that said the plants have been worth the wait. I really have almost no bad nursery experience. Some places have sent smaller than I wanted plants(for the price), but they grew and are now thriving and/or producing. I fully feel that if a plant arrives and isn’t DOA (hasn’t happened yet) that it is 100% my responsibility if it dies or doesn’t grow well. I am a bit discouraged at the amount of people seeking refunds for plants that very well could have been their fault that they didn’t thrive. I imagine nurseries aren’t operating on large margins, and these instances definitely drive up prices. Maybe I’m wrong about that, I’m open to it, however that’s my philosophy with plant shopping online.
Trees of Antiquity. I’ve never received a bad product or plant that wasn’t perfectly packed. Never had anything I bought from them fail.
Jung Seed. You wouldn’t guess it from their website but everything I’ve ever gotten from them is perfect caliper, quality and packed well. I suspect they get their stuff from a bigger nursery, but whoever it is they have nice trees.
Wafler Nursery is top quality as well especially if you’re more on the commercial side. More consistent than Cummins in my experience.
Century Farm Orchard and St Lawrence nursery are great and easy to communicate with. A lot of varieties that can’t be had anywhere else.
just got another tree from fedco. nice sized tree with good roots. again, horrible packaging ! they put it in this big plastic bag with wet shredded newspaper but theres nothing to keep the newspaper in the root zone and the bag for that matter. a quick wrap of tape around the bag above the root ball would fix this issue. i messaged them about it last year. no response. i guess they think they know better. luckily they’re in state so i got it quickly. if it had to cross the country the tree likely wont make it.
The grafted persimmon nurseries are usually either way too expensive or always out of stock…
Chestnut Hill if they are true to name have excellent trees and a great selection. Someone mentioned that they dont trust them…, but that makes little sense as their target audience is hunters.
Final rant- i hope that someday a nursery will carry all of DWN trees… instead of me having to order from 5 different nurseries to get their offerings.
Also would be nice if a nursery carried the full catalog of Freedom tree farms…