I brought this topic up I believe about this time last year. The “Big” names seem to all have gone this route. I get emails from Strak Bros almost daily (like to keep up on the “competition”) LOL. They are ridiculous, this is about the price they were this time last year. They start out with if outrageously high prices on poor quality trees (at least buy our business standards). I really dont pay much attention to any of them but last year it was for pre ordering trees to be delivered the following Spring. They have gone to the fancy advertising and hype to hopefully cash in on the panic buyers that are pretty clueless about trees in general.
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I bought some trees when I first started but now I only buy what I can’t propagate myself. The prices do seem to be high but I’m thinking that the sellers have pretty high production costs that they need to cover and of course they need to make a profit. I’m glad that I rarely need to purchase from the sellers now. One huge benefit to our forum is the ability to trade scions.
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The old fashioned fruit growers like Cliff England will get old and retire. They can’t make a decent living by selling some small batch of fruit trees on the cheap. Some of the other wholesale growers in Tennessee will retire too.
They will be replaced with more commercial wholesale growers who grow small plants in huge warehouse. Some will do tissue culture. They sell thousands of the same plants. Even more.
It is all about change of the grower’s business. We gardeners need to change too. If you want to get some not popular and not so common plants like jujube trees, you either grow/graft on your own. Or pay higher prices.
How many jujube trees are sold in USA each year?
Things will only get worse to come. Get used to it.
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I haven’t bought fruit trees in a few years. So was a bit surprised at prices when I went shopping recently.
Fast Growing Trees comes out on top of all searches for trees. I don’t know how or why but they’ve got a good marketing plan. No way I’d buy from them.
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I was i guess we can say, not smart, and got a Monty cherry that was 5ft for like 130$ from fast growing trees, I’ve found some small nursery that sells things like this for 50$.
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I’m sorry I brought that up. Sometimes this internet marketing stinks.
I probably paid too much for what I’ve got on order. But it seems to be the times in which we live, at least right now.
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It’s my understanding that the demand for jujubes is much higher than the supply, albeit to a smaller group of interested people versus an apple or peach tree.
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I am probably going to graft myself, it’s fun I hope, I’ve never done it but how difficult is it, to graft cherry with the whipe and tongue method 
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I’ve been getting the fall catalogs for perennials - prices inflated through the roof
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Cherry aren’t easy to graft but it can be done. And grafting is fun. You’ll be glad you tried and not just to save money.
I have the same plan. Can’t find Nemaguard rootstock for sale so I bought Nemaguard seeds. I’m putting them into stratification today. Hopefully by next summer They’ll be big enough to graft on my stone fruit that I want to plant in the greenhouse.
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In Canada the prices have gone up at least $10 per year since Covid hit. Before a tree was in the $45-50 range. Now the average fruit tree is $70 at local nurseries. The quality is very poor as well, because nurseries in Canada can’t meet demand. Many of our trees sold locally are actually coming from the US, and the quality sucks.
The trees are shipped bare root and kept in cold storage for who knows how many months awaiting Canada customs approval to be allowed into the Country. Once approved they are planted out in containers and sold in Nurseries in the spring. The trees look healthy when purchased, but the roots have been badly butchered and it’s like Russian Roulette if they’ll survive as they have very little root system left for the size of the trees. Many of the trees sold locally won’t even stay vertical in the pot as they have too little roots to keep them upright.
You can forget a one year survival guarantee, because they know they won’t make any money that way. The trees are in short enough supply they know people will be happy to just get something. I don’t live near any big box stores, so there’s no way to find cheaper locally. Around here standard fruit trees start at $70, and multi-grafted trees such as espalier are $100-120 Canadian.
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Too expensive is typically decided by customers. If they keep selling even one tree for $100 profit per tree…that’s better for them than selling 100 trees for $1 profit each.
The gullible and unknowing…as well as the impatient often pay too much.
In this day of instant messaging, not many like to wait for spring shipping season…
and certainly not for grafts to take and grow.
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I agree with the statement except people now have less money. They are all not far from going under. It will be the people like Dax that survive and continue to make money.
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I appreciate your thoughts @Robert. I don’t agree though that people have no money.
(Or are all those ship-loads of container goods lined up at our ports carrying stuff for government and industry.?)
If they have no money it’s because they used to make $8 and spend $9…and now they make $15 but spend $20.
Prices are going up not because of no money, but because there’s more money than there are goods to be bought. Economics 101. (Somebody needs to tell their elected leaders you can’t spend your way out of inflation, nor out of debt).
I can still buy apple trees under $20…or even under $8 if buying several hundred.
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Latest news says 1 in 4 homes are behind on their power bills. Not sure I believe that number, but I’m sure plenty are.
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Those prices are similar to last year. In fact I would say all fruit tree and bush prices are about the same as last year. Prices increased after the 2020 season. What happened was when Covid-19 hit everyone went to gardening so there was and still is more demand for some trees than can be met. The stores Clark picked are known for being expensive though. Many of those sell potted plants. Nature hills and Fast Growing Trees have big plants so if you want a massive sized plant maybe it is worth it. I got a Comice and Warren from Nature Hills. The Comice came on the standard rootstock I wanted so I was happy with paying that cost to get it. The Warren came on OH XF 333 rootstock which if I would have seen that and it was not labeled callery rootstock I would not have bought it from them. Places like Fast Growing Trees and Nature Hills pay places like google to be the top search results
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“People” is too broad a term, there are plenty of “people” willing to pay way too much for too little. Heck I was shopping on Amazon for a pair of rubber shoes, basically gardening slippers. I was amused to see a whole bunch selling for around $100 because that particular cheap rubber item had a particular brand name attached to it.
You know what? I’m happy for both those who are happy buying them and for those selling them. Those are not needs but wants, so no big deal. Heck if you want to put the effort gardening lends itself for you to end up with the exact same tree for pennies on the dollar. This year I spent about $45 in rootstocks, sold about half of the ones that took for $30 each. I ended up with 4 trees to plant and cash left over for other garden goodies.
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good time to start to grow out hardy rootstock from seed then grafting them and selling them ourselves. many of us have lots of scions left over from pruning anyway. might as well put them to good use and make some coin on the side. its what im doing this fall in my nursery bed. got a bunch of hardy apple seeds to grow out.
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I agree people being poor is too general. As my grandma puts it were all have our priorities. I work at USPS and we routinely get 4-9 6 foot tall by 5 foot wide pallets and after a 3 day holiday it is not unheard of to get 17 or more pallets of amazon. Heck on 4th of July I was the only one staffed and they brought 11 pallets of 6 x 5 foot pallets and they brought the average amount the next day. We just spent part of our day yesterday cleaning up maple syrup and salad dressing from two separate packages. I delivered a renewal note to a lady who buys a bunch of stuff stating her snow mobile plates needed to be renewed. Clearly there are some who have money. It is just that those who have money and those who do not are diminishing. The carriers in my office know I make a decent amount but I certainly work for that decent amount. I wake up and throw packages at 4:30 in the morning and today it was nearly 3::00 by the time I got out for example. Last Christmas I worked from 4:30 in the morning to 5:30-6:00 at night. Some would be like you spend how much or you want to go where on your next vacation but when you work 6 days a week and often get at least a little overtime in my opinion you have money to spend. Others that don’t work at much don’t make as much. I remember someone once said greatness does not come from a 40 hour work week. That has rung true in my books. Those working 40 hours a week are generally pretty poor.
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Are they difficult to graft because everything needs to be very precise, or something else? I hope Ill be able to succeed as I will start with a high difficulty of grafting.