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nafex - Re: [NAFEX] your favorite nurseries

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  • From: Ginda Fisher <list@ginda.us>
  • To: North American Fruit Explorers <nafex@lists.ibiblio.org>
  • Subject: Re: [NAFEX] your favorite nurseries
  • Date: Tue, 1 Sep 2009 00:12:08 -0400

NAFEX may not want to get into explicitly endorsing or unendorsing nurseries. It's probably worth checking the archives since this topic has come up before, but here are some nurseries I've done business with recently and my experience:

St. Lawrence Nurseries: specialize in cold-weather stuff. Huge selection of apples on near-standard rootstock. I've also bought half- high blueberries, ribes, and a shrub cherry from them. They always send nice sized plants that are very well packed. (sometimes huge plants, presumably if they haven't sold as much as they hoped of that plant in the last few years.)

Cummins Nursery: I think this is run by the son of the guy who did a lot of the apple breeding work for Cornell. Large selection of both apple cultivars and rootstocks, and a source for retail quantities of rootstock, especially the Cornell series or rootstocks. They have some other stuff, too.

Fedco: huge selection, nice people, can only order by fax/mail. (not e-mail, phone, or web.)

Nourse: Specialize in berries, and have a nice selection of ribes, as well as strawberries, blueberries, raspberries, and some other stuff. I like their catalog because they will tell you "this one doesn't taste as good as the others, that one is more susceptible to the XYZ disease."

Oikos Tree Crops: some hard-to-find trees. People are nice, but plants are small.

The Strawberry Store (frais de bois): I had mixed luck with this vendor, but I've never seen another to have such a large selection of alpine strawberries. I ordered three varieties. They were small, and one set (of 6) was heavily infested with aphids. I gather they depend on naturally occurring predators to keep the aphids in check, and that's not always reliable. Still, interesting enough selection that I'd buy form them again.
============

Also, Dave's Garden Watchdog is a great on-line resource for checking up on mail-order places. It's worth reading the comments, because you might find that a place is good for bulbs but lousy for green plants, for example.

Ginda
eastern MA, zone 6

On Aug 31, 2009, at 11:36 AM, mIEKAL aND wrote:

Not to detract or belittle the question, but this question comes thru
3-4 times a year & it might be a good thing to put up a resource list
on the NAFEX website of the cream of the crop.

~mIEKAL

I'll put Fedco & St Lawrence out there since they've both served me
well & are both using organic practices...

On Mon, Aug 31, 2009 at 10:32 AM, Deb S<debs913@gmail.com> wrote:
I'm interested in which nurseries are your favorites for buying fruit trees
and berry bushes. What do you look for in a good mail order nursery?

I'm starting to plan for spring and want to add pear and apple trees. Also
looking at several varieties of gooseberry and perhaps raspberries.

deb





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