I have over 70 fruit trees, I certainly can wait. No hurry here.
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So do I. Last year I grafted two Honeycrisp and not a week later I found a very large one at at Costco for $75. I ended up planting that one and selling my two saplings. I also like buying from the smaller nurseries. But growing my own and selling some of it pays for most of that.
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My husband said Costco has fruit trees on sale, I think itâs $29, the best thing about Costco is you can return them if they are dead, no need to keep a receipt.
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They were 20 dollars last year here. I have not been to Costco this year so donât know what they have but last year here they were selling things for zone 7 and up with a few exceptions. I bought a pink lady from Costco and it did well other than a woolly aphid infestation.
The thing about Costco is that you want to be there as soon as they bring them in, else they get neglected to the point of dying.
In Alaska they need every bit of the short season for them to get established. If they have to spend it just coming back from the brink of death they may not be strong enough to make it through the winter.
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In my Costco trees sell out so fast it does not get neglected. They fly off the shelf in a weekend
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I run one of the online retailers that specializes in Fruit trees. We sell a 4 to 5 foot tree that is offered in a #3 pot or Bare Root and shipped in a 60x10x10 in box. We have been with Fedx and they got too expensive. So we switch to UPS and their costs for us are as follows
General Residential
Weight
Residential Surcharge
Delivery Area Surcharge
Additional Handling- Longest Size
Demand Surcharge- Added handling
Fuel Surcharge
Then if that is not enough because the box is âOversizedâ they charge us adjustments
Audited Dimensions
Additional Handling- longest side
Additional Handling -length- Girth
That is what the bill looks like. We just set the measurements in their system and their system calculates the shipping rate. Then unknown to us hits us with the adjustment charges, which in some case take all the profit. The shipping companies are forcing us to ship smaller trees and because our growing cost are going up and are very similar for rither a smaller tree or that one we offer currently, the cost of the tree will remain the same. As with most products history the consumer continues to get less for more. I donât have an answer but am open to suggestions
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It is tougher and tougher to be in a smaller business like yours and make a go of it. The costs keep going up and up. The shipping is a HUGE issue for any business. It is not the businesses fault that the shipping is becoming more and more. I know the USPS just started a surcharge for packages beyond something like 30" long. When you think you have figured out all the shipping costs, fee, extra add ones from the shipper they throw out one more that they charge you for. I was at the Post Office a while back and the PO worker stated some obscure regulation about something the people did not do to the package they were sending. Where 's THAT regulation listed?
I had one company send me a prepaid shipping label and they did not send me the correct form in my email to send back to them. It was a few days, over the weekend type thing, and they sent me the correct form to fill out and send back to them.
When I went to the Post Office with the prepaid shipping back to them the postal worker looked at the label and said, â the label is not fresh enough to use. You will have to buy a new shipping label to use." WHAT??? I took the box and put it up to my nose and said "it doesnât smell stale to me! "
More and more fees make shipping a nightmare for all. Glad you have been in business for as long as you have. We, as consumers, complain about shipping costs but most do not realize what all is involved with extra the shipping costs. Thank you for posting this helpful information.
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Good points. Basically, itâs the value of the dollar from all the excessive printing âŚas trees have remained fairly stable. Inflated money is the bigger problem than inflated tree prices.
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Menards here had about 20 Contender peach trees for $40 each. All of them were flowering and looked pretty nice. 11% back makes them a little cheaper.
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The price of wholesale Apple trees is up a little this year to around $10 but the delivery costs are up a lot.
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all of my bare root and trees in general are arrived.
ogw and another place both shipped so early I had to pot up to keep them going until the ground softened.
raintree are fine and right on time but expensive
burnt ridge, all on time, big root balls, good size for the price, all seem healthy
fedco is the standard, exactly what I ordered, to the inch, to the pound.
stark bro one tree was dried and dead, no green when scratched, they refunded. the other two were fine, a bit smaller than BR/fedco
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Iâm still waiting on Burnt Ridge. Theyâve been âboxes need weighingâ for about ten days now.
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Yeah, I recently looked over my spreadsheet and for the past few years shipping was consistently 13 to 15% of my yearly fruit plant invoices. This year itâs 25%! And thatâs despite me overall making larger orders from fewer places, trying to group the plants to save on shipping more.
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My spreadsheet indicates I paid 21% shipping cost on the plants ordered within the last year. Womack, Edible Landscaping and HoneyBerry shippings were the most expensive.
Free market?
40% tax and regulations up the wazoo inflation like crazy with stagnate wages?
Chant free market until Weimar Germany comes but if you look at medical, banks, cars, or petroleum honestly, no one can believe thereâs a free market, and petroleum and banks do affect the price or everything.
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My first flush of fruit trees were air layer propagated figs, my second are all of the fig varieties that I am propagating from cuttings that Iâve gotten (mostly for free when a customer had a fig tree that needed a trim).
It was on my third pass that I ordered fruit trees, bushes and vines from 6 different online outfits. I donât regret the money that I spent, as I took my time in selecting from whom I would order what. Now that I am running deep with all of those I feel that I can move in the direction many in this thread espouse: grow your own or graft something onto what you have that you can work with. BONUS I know that I get a great sense of satisfaction when I create something that I could have just gone out and bought instead.
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Merchants are adding their surcharges to the already high charges of the shipping companiees. But, hey, if people sit at home, save their gas, they pay for somebody elseâs gas.
Right?
Are folks going to go back to in-person shopping?
Remains to be seen I suppose.
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sweet cherries graft easily on monty.
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Are you supplementing the light from the window?