North American Fruit Explorers mailing list at ibiblio

[sherwin <sherwindu@att.net>]

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