Winners
Bay Laurel
Grandpa's
Edible Landscaping
One Green World
Indiana Berry
Botany Shop Garden Center
A surprising entry here is Hirt's Gardens, ordered from Amazon. Impressive elderberries.

Everything from above was exceptional. Well packaged huge plants bursting with vigor!

OK, not great
Raintree - I had a huge order, all is OK, but the plants are pretty beat up.
Berries Unlimited - Small and deformed to fit package

Try to avoid
Burnt Ridge - Plants were shipped by slow boat, show weak growth Some plants were so dry I had to trim dead brown stems off of them.
American Meadows - like a big box store that has plants on the shelf for weeks before you buy it. The one plant I ordered was dry, and had weak growth. It did survive though and is now ok.
Honeyberry USA - Plants were very small for the price. Overbooked sales. Plants showed weak growth, one died.
This is a rather new nursery, and they have sent great plants to others. I did order in February though, and should have received the best plants. I may give them another chance.

Their packaging was impecable. They shipped my stuff on a friday (no idea why they would do that) and it didn't arrive til the following Wednesday but everything was still very moist and all but one were dormant. I would definitely order from them again in the future. Prices can't be beat and I was very happy with what arrived.

Cummins:
Communication: Excellent
Packaging: Excellent
Size and Vigor: Excellent
Everything in great shape and shipped late enough for my cold spring. This is my 5th year ordering from them.

England's Orchard & Nursery:
Communication: Excellent
Packaging: Excellent:
Size and Vigor: Excellent
Shipped in fall. My NC-10 was not fully dormant and I should have asked for spring shipment or kept it potted in the garage. It did not make it but I just received a replacement.

FORREST KEELING NURSERY
Communication: Adequate
Packaging: Excellent
Size and Vigor: Disappointing
I expected trees for $20.00, but the Peterson pawpaws were a foot tall in 4" pots.

One Green World
Communication: Excellent
Packaging: Excellent
Size and Vigor: Excellent
They held shipping my order until the black current I ordered was up to size, which was fine with me. My original order was placed in November by mail. Between then and April when I added to my order there was a price increase that added $6.00 to my previously ordered items. They initially charge this, but I did receive a refund.

Nourse Farms
Communication: Excellent
Packaging: Excellent
Size and Vigor: Excellent
I finally got my hands on Guelph asparagus. They arrived in great shape but I was surprised that there was no material to keep the roots moist. I've never ordered asparagus before so I don't know what to expect really. Everything I've ever ordered from Nourse has been far above the norm in quality.

All the praise for them here but I really am not very fond of them- shipped late too.

The trees from Fowler Nursery were small, unbranched whips, about 4.5 feet tall (and not headed), but that's EXACTLY what I want. I ordered from them last year and was pleased with what I received then, too, though the trees were bigger.

First time ordering from Cloud Mountain Farm Center and would order from them again.

Henry Fields
- Ka Bluey Blueberry (jumbo) - good size, well packaged
- More items incoming...

Raintree
- Obsidian Blackberry - 4" pot, well packaged, reasonably priced, quickly shipped

Indiana Berry
- Good customer service, very good pricing, decent quality plants

I purchased a number if items from farms / nurseries operating through Ebay and nearly all of it was shipped quickly and of good quality and price. All and all, nearly all of my purchases have been at least acceptable to good. I insisted on buying plants last year in the middle of a record heat wave and those plants were a bit worse than average but that is at least somewhat my fault.

I called and told them about it and they told me to give it a little time. It's been about a month and all the others are doing well except this one which is still dead.

I'm going to call today about gettin,g a replacement. I'll post an update.

I won't order from them again ever after last year they sent me a bunch of half dead conifer trees (various types)... Even if they are cheap. I've had good luck in the past, but its probably hit or miss these days.

Indiana Berry - I ordered blackberry and raspberry. Great prices and they don't require you order in groups of five like many other sellers.

Double A Vineyard - Best root systems on bareroot plants that I've ever seen. Also the only place that I found to carry all the Arkansas varieties.

Ison's - I bought two of their hard to find Russian pomegranate. Great price and nice sized trees. Unfortunately, one never leafed out, but they will send a replacement in the fall.

Nolin River - Bought two American persimmon. A little high on price, but trees are hard to find. Neither has leafed out, but scratch test shows green under bark.

Fruit Tree Farm - Great plants, best prices on the net.

McKenzie Farm - Excellent. Customer service was top notch, great plant, great prices. Highly recommended for citrus plants.

St Lawrence Nurseries

Two trees (apple and plum). Nice sized, good roots, Plum had a bit of green on the bud tips which did not fair too well with our cold snap (-3F). But the apple is nicely dormant. Too soon to say if they will leaf out.

In past years the trees I have gotten here have been of good quality, shipped quickly and dormant.

Gurneys

Mixed results. The $5 Gold Rush apple was very good quality and dormant, and arrived at the right time for planting. English walnut was nice sized but had started to break dormancy but looks like it will survive. Blueberries were a disaster, took two to three reshipments to get live ones. On the good side, customer service was very pleasant to deal with and willing to reship until I got some living plants. Again too early to say what will eventually grow.

Henry Fields

Disaster. They shipped two Prime-Jan blackberries a month or more too early, and when they arrived they were in leaf. Customer service would have reshipped, but they were all sold out so they refunded my purchase price (but not the shipping).

Re: Millers they love to do that trick of replacing dead plants with nearly-dead plants; nearly all the replacements I got them them were horrible quality and died. I tried for three years to get a Rochester peach from them that wouldn't die but I gave up.

Scott

a 3 year meyer lemon from four winds that had significant die back of all the new growth leaves and then the branches back to the main branches (it may have gotten too cold during shipping?). The tree is holding on now but is only putting out new growth on two branches. Additionally the tree was shaped kind of odd. They typically are rated very highly so maybe i got unlucky.

I also got 2 banana plants from going bananas. They showed up looking great and i thought they had excellent customer service.

I just put in my BR order for this year (apple, apricot, seaberry, jujube, and Asian persimmon) but have not received it yet.

Rolling River sent me some very nice autumn olive plants and a Chinese yam, very carefully packed. I will order from them again as long as they have what I'm looking for at the time.

Of course, because I order in some quantity, bundles of 5 of each variety, I pay only around $10 a tree- something the likes of Raintree, or Trees of Antiquity won't do for me- although TofA gives me some discount.

The two large nurseries I'm using these days are Adams and Van Well, both of whom sell individual trees to the small grower as well. The trick with such nurseries is to order now for next year so you get what you want. Adams is selling more antique apple varieties every year.

For a general response to this thread, since last summer I've received orders from Edible Landscaping, Hidden Springs, and Burnt Ridge, each of which I'd dealt with at least a couple times before. I think Burnt Ridge is alright, not great. I'd recommend Edible Landscaping and Hidden Springs very highly. Hidden Springs seems to mostly sell pretty young/small stuff, but they've got great prices, and everything of theirs I've planted has come on strong and done great (which I can't say for some of the larger stuff I've gotten.)

I also ordered tree seed from F W Schumacher, and everything was fine with that order other than a very small small-order fee I wasn't expecting and the order taking about a month longer to arrive than I would have thought reasonable.

Recently they've drastically reduced their selection and are no longer of use to me- I tried Van Well at Opea's suggestion as a replacement source and have not been disappointed.

However, I get my orders in early and I'm not a small customer (except by commercial grower standards) so my experience may be different. I believe that Garden Watchdog gives C+0 a good rating, though.

I would never order from a nursery that doesn't let me know the size of the trees I'm getting ahead of time if I had a choice. In rather extensive experience with stock, I haven't found that smaller trees tend to establish faster at all, and, in fact, I have to baby sit them for an additional year before they are ready to sell. To the home buyer that's the equivalent of waiting an extra year to enjoy a harvest.

As far as nurseries that cater to home growers, I believe if a company sends out mass mailings to sell stuff the expense of said mass mailings generally comes out of the quality and size of their merchandise. Also that you are best off dealing with nurseries that grow their own merchandise. Raintree is an exception to this rule and there are others.

Cummins and Trees of Antiquity are two very good nurseries that produce all their own stock.

Oddly I found that the inventory of Orange Pippin coincided exactly with the inventory of Cummins.

harvestman,

I agree with you regarding mass mailings. In fact I usually refrain from buying from a company that has a really polished website. I hear Grandpa's is good and they have a nice website, so that can't be the only factor, but there is a physical limit to how many varieties can be grown well by a single company.

Cummins and Trees of Antiquity are really up there in quality IMHO.

The reason I ordered a tree from Burnt Ridge was because they carried Calville Blanc and the price was right- but I would have tried to find it elsewhere if I'd known it would be so small.

#1 Arboreum

#2-3 tied Raintree and One Green World

all excellent and healthy trees but the Arboreum root systems were beyond compare. Huge.

Stark bros - same quality as Burnt Ridge. I would order again.

Ison - GREAT plants but small.

Bottom Nursery- bigger and and stronger muscadines.

Edible lanscaping - I picked up my plants there. Plant were very healthy but small.

I finally did receive the tree. Then a few weeks later received an email asking if I received my tree. I told them I did. Received another email from them a while later telling me the carrier mistakenly sent my tree to Bucyrus, Ohio instead of Bucyrus KS and they couldn't track the tree down. I told them I had already received my tree, but they sent me another one anyway.

I ended up getting both trees in very good condition.

Aboreum gets a "D" in communication, but I give them a "B+" (or even an A-) overall because their stock is very good and they really do try to satisfy their customers in the end. They just need to read their emails.

I ordered just a couple different plums to try from Burnt Ridge. One was OK, but the other had pretty bad damage to the trunk (damage about 2/3 the way through the trunk). Tree did leaf out and is still alive.

I got 25 trees from Adams. They were fine except that one tree had an active crown gall on the roots, which confirmed why I've seen crown gall on some of their trees I've dug up and moved.

I've had a couple bad experiences in the past with C&O and probably won't order from them again. One problem as Milehigh mentioned, is the extra fees they tack on, making their trees expensive. Another issue is that one year they couldn't fill my order because frigid winter weather killed some of their stock. That's understandable, but they kept my deposit money (as a credit to my account) instead of sending it back to me.

This happened once with Arboreum, but like any good business, Arboreum refunded my money to me in the form of a check.

Scott

Bruce,

I ordered from them a couple times, the last time was 2 or 3 years ago. I don't want to give the impression they were terrible, but I was dissatisfied enough the last time that I probably won't order from them again.

The first time I ordered I discovered after I placed my order they have a big boxing fee. It's been a long time, but I think it was an extra $15. I don't believe any other nursery I do business with charges this random fee if you order at least 3 trees. Additionally I think they charged more for shipping than other nurseries in WA. It significantly increased the cost of my small order. I don't mind occasionally paying a high price for a variety or two that I really want to try, but I like knowing the cost on the front end.

The last time I ordered from them, they had a winter freeze event that apparently killed all their young peach trees. I had already made a deposit on a small peach tree order. They wrote me a letter indicating they couldn't fill my order because the trees died. That's understandable, they couldn't do anything about that, but they kept my deposit money as a credit to my account. I thought that unprofessional and probably a marketing decision by some manager as a "clever" way to insure their customers come back for repeat business. The way they handled that irked me a little.