That was what I did not like about peaceful valley. They send when the ground is not going to be thawed while other nurseries wait for the right time.
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Box stores have been the worst in mislabeling type fraud , but the best at cheap prices for what you get. That goes for their ornamentals, also.
From personal experience going back decades.
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In my experience the big drawback of big box stores is that there is also very few varieties or things to pick from. My local Home Depot and Lowes only had two cultivar of apples to pick from and something like one cherry cultivar to pick from for example. They tend to be common cultivars too like honey crisp in my experience. You will never see more rare things like a mulberry or pawpaw from a big box store. Honestly in terms of things being mislabeled they get mislabeled all the time even at nursery. I have a local nursery here in CO called Ol tools which has at least two locations. I bought a yellow fatalii pepper from them and it grew into a JalapeƱo type of pepper so clearly it was mislabeled and that was from a nursery. Basically my opinion on big box stores is buy from them if you just want the plant and it is not a rare plant. If you want a rare plant or a specific cultivar that is not super common place buy from online nurseries. There are still fairly affordable nursery online and it gets really affordable when you combine orders. If I buy from Home Depot and I get a few trees it will really not be that much more than if I were to buy from say One Green World and get 4 trees with 20 dollars shipping.
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Iāve had slightly different experience than you on some things. My local long time nurseries have been labeled accurate probably 97% time, 3 to 5 times as expensive. My box stores have been less than 40% accurate labels. But much cheaper than a real nursery and almost no selection. Fruit trees took 1 to 5 years before the cheat was exposed. This goes back 35 years at least of plant shopping. For years now I just graft a known reliable source scion or buds. Shipping is now more than the plants- sky high - crazy. I wanted a largeish āFlavorellaā last year from Arboreum Company who I completely trust, tree was about $30, shipping was close to $100 DOLLARS!!! No diceā¦
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My local nurseries are super expensive compared to a big box store but I have found online places that are affordable is what I was saying. My local nursery here in CO will charge 120-250 per tree. I have found with online nursery I can buy a tree for between 20 something or 30 something dollars online and pay 20 something or 30 something shipping from the right nursery. If you are talking about flavorilla plumcot One Green World has 20 or 21 dollar shipping and is selling them for 44.95.
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My mail order shipping is a much higher cost zone, Midwest area.
Iāve bought fruit trees from most of the west coast nurseryās since the '80s, never has the shipping cost been such a bite. And some of the rootstock choice isnāt suitable for my conditions.
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I am one state across from you in CO. I canāt imagine it being too much more. In terms of rootstocks I know sides of Kansas can be very different. The side by CO is very much like my area (very dry) and the other side is very wet and one zone warmer. I would have to look at a map to see which side Topika is on. My grandma is from Kansas which is why I have a southern accent as well as some more southern verbiage despite being born in CO. Shipping costs going up is a topic in on itself. At least with USPS and shipping it is my understanding back in 2011 the forever stamp was started at 41 cents and was just upped to 63 cents. When I started at the Post Office in 2020 the forever stamp was in the low to mid 50 cents. This means in the last 3 years about half of shipping costs increased in that time. It has gotten to the point that I have just pre bought lots of forever stamps so when I ship something I can just put stamps on it and get the sticky with the affixed postage to it so it does not get returned to me for being over 10 oz. Nursery do not typically use USPS for one and even if they did they do not have the luxury of being able to prepay for shipping because they send too many packages out. This means when shipping goes up they have to charge way more as well. At this point I am even surprised with some shipping costs. The box can be a few dollars alone forgetting about the shipping cost of something with anything over 13 oz or big like a tree or bush will be. I shipped some canvasses to be stitched by a needlepoint company and the box was not heavy or big and it cost 13 dollars to ship from CO to TX before stamps.
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KS is in the next, more expensive, shipping zone than CO in most shipping maps. Ground shipping can take up to a week/ too long for a tree in a box IMHO. IāM on eastern side in heavy clay. Lived in NE CO in the 60ās, very different conditions.!
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I got canvasses shipped to me UPS from the art of needlepoint company which is located in Main. It took a week to get to me. I ordered a pendant from the Dominican Republic a few years ago and I think it took 5 days to get to me. UPS used to get to my house at 10:00 AM to 3:00 PM unless it was a few occasions. Now UPS is lucky to be here by 8:00 PM most days. It feels like at least in the case of UPS their delivery times have slowed down and drivers are getting to houses slower. FEDEX and USPS seem to have decent delivery times wherever I am getting them from however. Both CO and Kansas are heavy clay soil. The thing is your side of Kansas has a lot of rain which make it harder for certain trees. My uncle lives in Missouri and he gets roughly the same amount of rain as my sister which lives in Virginia. According to my grandma the other side of Kansas is more dry but is also far more cold if you look at a zone map. You have the opposite problem of me in terms of water needs for rootstock even though we are both clay. I need drought resistant rootstock that grows in clay and you need rootstock that can handle wet feet. Clark has posted pictures of his landscaping that just turned into a lake after a rain and I never have had that issue. Our clay drains quickly or just evaporates.
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I would like to offer a counterpoint to the argument.
While I do feel that there are companies that are listing their trees at (seemingly outrageously high) prices that are not in keeping with the going rate, I have a new appreciation for all of the labor time (and resulting cost) that is involved in successfully bringing a tree to market.
Iāve been taking cuttings of fig trees and potting them for propagation. Iāve come to recognize that while there was significant time involved in producing each batch of ~18, the process of checking them for sprouting, subsequent monitoring, and then watering them (only when appropriate) has added to it dramatically.
Iāve also repotted all of my fruit trees that Iāve ordered that have already arrived, as I do not wish to plant them into my soil until this fall. That was another eye-opening experience time-wise, which gave me a new appreciation for the time involved in their initial potting.
I make my own potting soil, and while the individual components are not expensive, there is a financial cost involved. I seriously doubt that any of the commercial operations are doing anything but ordering in their soil, and whomever is producing it for them needs to make a profit for their efforts.
Add to that the cost of the nursery labor for grafting/layering/whatever propagation method they utilize, overhead for the property that they operate on, and all of the numbers add up pretty quickly. That recognition has helped to tremendously soften the blow that my pocketbook felt.
This thread was instrumental in helping me to get off my tail end, bite the financial bullet and get my fruit trees on order, and I thank everyone who contributed to it.
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Hereās another thing to ponder: you know how people complain Wal-Mart basically killed mom and pop stores with cut throat pricing? Shouldnāt we then celebrate the opposite? Companies that are figuring out to thrive with higher prices, which in turn helps a healthier ecosystem of mom and pop operators?
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i buy local as much as i can and are currently cutting meat at a friendās country store thatās been around over 100yrs.i love talking to the locals esp. the older folks that come in to b.s in the mornings over coffee. the owners needed some plumbing done so he bartered some fresh cut prime black angus as payment.
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I just bought a hood pear from Home Depot for less than the one I ordered from Bay Laurel. I often get very good trees from Home Depot. I also canceled my 3 pomegranate trees from them and bought one in a pot from the local Home Depot.
Even though Bay laurel trees are very good, 3 are budding right now, people still buy when the prices are right.
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I agree with you as well.I will shop smaller nurseries and stores to keep them in business. Normally you will not pay that much more. Usually it is more of a convenience to shop bigger stores, less trips. I dod not mind more trips , normally.
I have sticker shock at Stark Brothers though. Their āorganicā trees are WAY too high. Their tree prices have really gone up. However, like someone else mentioned costs all around have gone up especially for the bigger companies. Everything has gone up in price. Look at egg prices. I never though a dozen eggs would cost more than a gallon of milk.
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Newer fruit grower here. Only dealing with smaller nurseries. Here are some prices Iāve paid recently:
3g Pawpaw Atwood and Chapelle - $65
3g Persimmon Fuyu - $39
3g Satsuma Brown Select - $50
3g Meiwa Kumquat - $50
Bought some larger pawpaws last year for $95. These ones were a bit shorter. Citrus grower also had $25 ones in tree pots.
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layer feed 3 years ago was $14.99. now its $21.99. we went from selling $2 a doz to $6. not even paying me for my time. i considered downsizing but we provide mostly for families and friends so ill continue for them. been supplementing leftovers or expired food from work. has cut my feed costs 1/3rd.
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Likely just temporaryāeggs costing more than a gallon of milk. Bird flu concerns had a lot of influence on eggs more than the cost of food for the chickens.
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People wonder why Walmart and places like it have thrived so much more than local stores and I can give a few reasons. Prices are a lot higher at my local places than my online and my local places still donāt have much selection. My local nursery will charge between 120-250 dollars a tree and pay their workers minimum wage. I know because I saw their job listings up a few years ago when shopping. You will struggle to find a medlar, mulberry or paw paw where I live. Even common things like peaches the only genetic dwarf peach my local nursery sell last I checked was the Pixie peach. Another thing is selection/services. Places like Walmart, Home Depot etc. have a little bit of everything. Same with many of these places online. I can get many plants online. Same with other products that are niche. I was looking to have canvasses down for needlepoint ornaments. The treads were able to be selected and pulled for me, the stitching could be done, the finishing could be done all at one place online all for cheaper. If I did it local I would have had to select my own threads, pay 50% more per stitch inch and did not even bother enquiring about finishing it was looking so bad compared to online. Basically there is a reason big box stores and online stores are dominating over these mom and pop stores at least where I am.
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Different nursery have different methods. There are some that will propagate their own trees and what not like Trees Of Antiquity and there are others who will buy through bulk sales nursery such as Dave Wilson and resale to you. How much profit they make depends highly on the nursery in my experience. Mehrabyan nursery sales grafted trees for 20 something dollars still, Burnt ridge still sales trees 20 something or 30 something dollars, One Green World has had an uptick but not to the extent of others. Meanwhile ones like Raintree used to sell for 28 dollars in 2020 but are now typically around 60 dollars minimum. Given it takes 2 years to get many of these trees for sale I think prices are some nurseries are good. Nursery like Raintree can sale for such a steep price because some of their items cannot be bought many places or just through them (the zee sweet pluot is between them and Bay Laurel and I bought mine from Raintree at or below Bay Laurelās prices when I ordered then things like the red raspberry nectarine are sold exclusively through Raintree from what I see). Others are charging so much for advertising and not rare or specific products.
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