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nafex - Re: [NAFEX] [Bulk] Re: Let the customer beware

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  • From: sherwin <sherwindu@att.net>
  • To: North American Fruit Explorers <nafex@lists.ibiblio.org>
  • Subject: Re: [NAFEX] [Bulk] Re: Let the customer beware
  • Date: Wed, 25 May 2011 14:48:46 -0500

On 5/25/2011 9:50 AM, athagan@atlantic.net wrote:
It's the same in Florida. Wally World, Lowes, Home Depot and many
others will happily sell you something that hasn't a hope of ever
bearing fruit or even surviving in Florida. Very nearly bought a
couple of Granny Smith apple trees that way some years ago before I
learned to research this stuff first.

Quoting Jim Fruth<jimfruth@charter.net>:

Douglas Woodward wrote: "........................If a customer wanted to
buy something, they would sell it. I fear that a lot of businesses still
operate on that principle."


Most of the fruit trees in Wal-Mart's nursery here in Central Minnesota
won't survive here. When I informed an employee about it he said, "They are
all ordered in Arkansas and we get what Arkansas gets. If they don't grow,
the customers can get their money back." What the man failed to say is that
alot of people think they may have caused the death of the fruit tree and
won't ask for a refund.
Douglas,

Another problem not mentioned with big box stores is mislabeling of varieties.

A few years ago I purchased a tree labeled as Belle of Georgia Peach. Expecting a
white fleshed peach, it was an orange color of the other kind of peaches. My best
guess is that it is a Elberta, since I had grown that before.

When I checked further with Home Depot, they could not trace the source of this
tree. It went through several different places from the initial nursery to their store.

I bought it because it looked healthy, had a visible graft, and was a variety I needed
to fill in for another peach that had died. I normally would not buy from the big box
stores for no other reason than they do not specify what rootstock the trees are on.
You can find this later problem with several catalog sale places like Millers, etc. They
may say semi-dwarf, but there is a lot of latitude in tree size, plus if you are looking
for something like cold hardiness, you don't know what you are getting.

Sherwin Dubren




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