“Sorry,” I said as I leaned in front of a guy to snap the above photo of the label on the bag of a bare-root Carpathian walnut tree at Home Depot.
“Do you know what is different these?” asked the man, pointing also at the tree beside the Carpathian walnut, labelled Hartley walnut.
The man had a well-trimmed gray moustache. He was wearing a name tag that read, “KHODAYAR.” It hung on a collared McDonald’s shirt. He also wore a McDonald’s hat.
“No, that’s exactly my question! I’ve never heard of these varieties being grown around here.”
“In my country, many walnuts. But there is cold. Snow on ground. My neighbor here, big walnut tree, but no nuts!” Khodayar looked around and said, “We can ask someone, but where is manager?”
I whispered even though no one was around, “You know what, I wouldn’t bother. The people who work here usually don’t know plants very well.” I saw that he was holding a phone. “It would be better to search for the information on the Internet.”
I’ve bought a number of fruit trees from Home Depot over the years, and I’ve asked the workers in the garden section about the plants many times. I no longer bother. I think of buying a fruit tree at Home Depot as like buying a car at an auction. You have to know plants yourself or buyer beware.
Not that you can’t get a quality fruit tree at Home Depot. In fact, it’s something of a secret that many of the trees at Home Depot, other big box chains, and local nurseries are actually exactly the same trees. There are two major wholesale growers of subtropical fruit trees — think citrus and avocado — in Southern California, and they supply most retail outlets, big and small.
La Verne Nursery is in Piru, Ventura County, and Durling Nursery is in Fallbrook, San Diego County. These wholesale growers put different tags on the trees they grow according to where they’re being sold. It’s like the cereal factory that puts the same corn flake concoction into one generic box as into another brand name box. If the trees are being sold at Home Depot the tag will say nothing about La Verne or Durling. You’ll just think it’s a Home Depot tree.
But have a look down at the sticker on the tree’s container and you’ll see the name of the nursery which grew the tree.
On the other hand, here’s what the tag on a citrus tree grown by Durling Nursery usually looks like if it’s being sold in a nursery.
You see on the tag that it is a Durling tree.
So you can pay $26 at Home Depot or $36 at a local nursery for exactly the same tree — exactly the same high-quality tree, I might add.
I had to recommend a nursery
Not so for deciduous fruit trees, however. The walnuts that Khodayar and I were looking at were grown by Pacific Groves, a wholesale grower up in Oregon and Washington. I’ve never seen Pacific Groves trees at a nursery in Southern California. And just as I’ve never seen the Carpathian or Hartley walnut varieties, other varieties of these bare roots here at Home Depot were curious, even suspicious: Bing cherry, for example. I didn’t think we could grow those in Southern California. They’re said to need about 700 chill hours. Nowhere outside of the mountain towns in Southern California gets that cold in winter, and this particular Home Depot was in the city of San Diego, in a location that might average half that many chill hours. Hmmm. It’s like buying a car at auction.
“Or you can go to a plant nursery nearby and they will probably have only trees that grow well in this area,” I said. “Do you know the nursery called Walter Andersen’s?”
Khodayar said he did. “Expensive! Do you know how much for pistachio tree from my country? Do you know? Two hundred!”
“Wow! But right now they have cheap trees. Not this cheap,” I pointed to the $19.98 price tag. “But only about ten dollars more. Only now in January, they have these cheaper bare-root trees.”
“Yes?”
“And hey, if you pay ten dollars more, but your walnut tree has nuts . . .”
“Yes!”
“Which country are you from anyway?”
“Iran.”
“Oh, okay. I’ve heard that Iran has many good nut trees.”
Khodayar lit up and spoke for a long time about how big the pistachios are in Iran, how thin the shells on the almonds are, how amazing the cucumbers smell, and how you can put an Iranian apple in your pocket and it gives off such an aroma that you don’t need to wear perfume.
L.E. Cooke is closing
I left Home Depot and drove to Walter Andersen Nursery, and on the way the irony caught up with me. Khodayar missed fresh, homegrown food. The last thing he mentioned was that tomatoes in America are so big. “But inside, just water.” All the while, Khodayar worked at McDonald’s.
At Walter Andersen’s nursery I was interested in buying a bare-root Fan-stil pear tree, a type of pear that is known to grow well in the mild winters and hot summers of inland Southern California, and I felt a sense of urgency about it. Just as there are two major growers of citrus and avocado trees for home gardeners in Southern California, there are two major growers of deciduous fruit trees: Dave Wilson and L.E. Cooke. There were two growers, I should say. L.E. Cooke, grower of my Fan-stil pear, won’t be around next year.
I asked the manager at Walter Andersen’s what was going to happen to their stock next year considering L.E. Cooke had announced that it would stop operations this spring. “Probably only Dave Wilson,” he said.
Why is L.E. Cooke closing? They’ve been in business since 1944 and are beloved by retail nursery owners and home gardeners like me. The President and CEO of the company took the time to write a detailed and candid letter of explanation on their website about why they’re closing, and one of the reasons is that in recent years they have chosen not to sell to the big box chains like Home Depot but instead to focus on supplying the local, independent nursery market.
As the letter says, “We always felt that Independent market served the country best with the most diverse products, customer training and stability of year to year volume (even during recessions). Contrary, we felt the box store model drove prices down for everyone, stifled new products as they offered a narrower scope of products and turned off the gardening public when they were not trained how to be successful keeping their plants and trees alive.”
Man, did that ring true. At Home Depot, Khodayar could’ve bought a cheap Carpathian walnut tree without any guidance on whether it would actually produce nuts in his San Diego yard, let alone how to prune or otherwise care for the tree.
Is your local nursery valuable?
I asked the Walter Andersen nursery manager if he had time for another question. “Sure.”
“Any idea if Dave Wilson will start growing some of the L.E. Cooke varieties in the future?”
“I know they’re going to take on the Tropic Gold apricot, but I’m not sure about a lot of others.”
The Tropic Gold apricot is a variety that L.E. Cooke grows especially for Southern California gardeners because it produces well here even as many other apricot varieties don’t.
“How about peaches?” I asked.
“Have you tried Dave Wilson’s Pride series?”
“I’m wondering about L.E. Cooke’s Galaxy.”
“Galaxy? Never heard of it.”
“It’s a donut-type peach. I’ve never even tasted one, but my neighbor has one and says it’s the best tree in his yard. So productive and so tasty.”
“Oh, it’s productive? That’s one of the problems with some donut peaches. Galaxy? I’m going to go look it up right now.”
You pay $26 for a citrus or avocado tree at a box store like Home Depot or $36 from a local nursery. You pay $20 for a bare-root fruit tree at Home Depot or $30 from a local nursery. Sometimes you’re buying the same tree, sometimes not. But what, beyond the tree in hand, do you get for that extra ten bucks? And how much is that worth?
Awesome post!! Thank you for such great information, especially the great tip about seeing where the HD tree was really grown! I was also thinking of asking at HD when they get new trees in, so I could potentially buy a tree right off the truck instead of one that’s been sitting for months at HD getting ignored. Thank you so much for this post! 🙂
That’s a great idea, Sharie. I’ve noticed that citrus and avocado trees at Home Depot often don’t get through summer heat waves well, for example. Sometimes it’s because they haven’t been watered enough, and sometimes it’s because they’ve been placed against a giant south-facing wall, which is extremely hot during such a time. So if you can buy a “fresh” one, you’ve got the best chance at a healthy tree.
We live in Las Vegas and want to plant a pluot. Unfortunately we can not find any in the local nursery. Our questions
1. Where in the so cal area can we find a nursery that carries pluots and sells to the general public?
2. Do all pluots require a separate pollinator?
Thank you
Hi William,
You can look through this page to find a retail nursery that sells pluot trees. I would aim to buy one in the bare root season, starting in December.
I don’t know of any pluots that are self-fertile. However, you can buy a multi-grafted tree which has three or four pluot varieties on it and will act as a self-fertile tree because the pollenizer is built in, so to speak.
I have recently purchased plants from Raintree nursery in Washington state. They may be pricey but perform as advertised. They have many varieties of fruit and nut trees I haven’t been able to find in any local nursery.
Raintreenursery.com
Thanks for mentioning your experience with Raintree, Val. I always enjoy looking at their catalog when I visit my in-laws in Oregon.
Although I didn’t mention the many online sources for fruit trees, they are valuable primarily in making more varieties accessible.
As a friend reminded me the other day, as long as we the gardeners do our homework and choose varieties that will thrive in the particular climates of our yards, we can find good trees from many sources, even far away ones.
I agree. The trees grown for HD by Pacific Groves Nursery are often not the best variety for our area. Many of the trees are also labeled dwarf but they are not. The rootstock may be a seedling source for semi-dwarf, which still produces a very large tree, not what people expect to get.
Thanks for pointing out the rootstock issue, Vince. I hadn’t been aware of it. That could really disappoint a person a couple years after planting such a tree.
where can i buy Sonya apple tree — it is a variety of gala apple . i am in sandiego CA
Sonya is what they call a “club variety” of apple. That means that someone owns the rights to the variety and only allows a small group (club) of farmers to grow the trees. In Sonya’s case, a company from New Zealand called Nevis owns the rights to the tree. So, as of today, we home gardeners can buy Sonya apples in the store but we can’t buy Sonya apple trees to grow ourselves. By the way, apparently Sonya is a cross between Gala and Red Delicious. You can read more here: https://www.orangepippin.com/apples/sonya
P.S. Some other club varieties of apple that you may have eaten include Jazz, Pinata, and Opal.
Try Trees of Antiquity in Paso Robles. Great place for hard to find heirloom varieties
Years ago I bought an orange tree at a Northern California grocery store. It had an unnaturally large orange on a spindly stick of a trunk. It wasn’t even in its growing zone. The tree died in its first freeze, although I might have saved it with incandescent Christmas tree lights. The nurseries know what they are doing. I now live in Louisiana. You can grow anything there you say, ever tried growing apples in high humidty? Know what fungicide to spray? They sell five different apples in the nursery and none of them survive the humidity. The Winters on rare occasions in Southern Louisiana dip down to 15 degrees from Midwest Arctic cold fronts. Our local nursery had a spot on the five O’Clock news recommending lemons and oranges. Do you want smudge pot vigel every winter at 28 degrees? That is as low as it can go for these trees. The nurseries want your plant to die. For sixty years they have been hybridizing dwarf trees that die off in a few years. I kniw of 120+ year old apple trees that received no water, no spraying, droughts, and Growing Zone 6-7 snow storms. They still produce and are being propagated. Every nursery tells you not to propagate a tree without their tree stock. Huh! Your tree would be healthier without that worthless spindly dwarf tree stock originally created to make harvesting less litigious. Don’t go dwarf. The farmers don’t even know this. The buy worthless dwarf trees designed so the farmer comes back in 20 years to replace his dead trees. We have cherries supposedly adapted to Texas that are just a marketing ploy. I wouldn’t be surprised if nurseries in Idaho are selling mangos. So many heirloom fruit trees are destroyed when commercial farmers go on a gold rush when they hear the price of almonds goes up. So they rip out all their fruit trees and replace them. Then when pea hes come back, some expert has replaced the real peaches in the store with round pieces of inedible hardness. This isn’t to say you can’t find unusual varieties that grow in extreme growing zones. I recently saw a list of fruit trees that grow in minus 35 degree Growing Zone 2 around Minneapolis, and it has expanded. Many of the tree species were developed in Saskatchewan. My advice, try propagating and google your growing zone and your city as well as the words “Fruit trees” first.
Hi Justin,
You’ve got a lot there, some of which I’ve experienced too. On the dwarf rootstock issue, I’m in your camp. I prefer to keep my trees to a desired size by pruning rather than a less compatible or weak rootstock (which is how many should be described rather than “dwarf”).
I do my best on this website to provide people shortcuts to choosing the right fruit trees for their context, but ultimately people must do a certain amount of their own trial and error. Even within my own yard, the same tree would have more or less success in different locations.
I spent some time in Nevada and Oregon this fall and ate from many wild and unirrigated apple, plum, and pear trees. Some were tasty, others were not, but they were all tough and independent and well-suited to their location. That’s for sure.
I also saw gardeners up there trying to grow citrus and bananas. That wasn’t working so well. It seems that gardeners everywhere refuse to be satisfied with growing only what is well-suited to a location. I know I’m not.
I have two pomegranate trees that fruit like crazy and I don’t even water them while I also have twenty avocados that I lavish with irrigation, not to mention that they don’t particularly like my winter cold or summer heat. What is wrong with me?
Greg – It was sad to read about the closing this year of L. E. Cooke nursery. In reading the farewell letter linked in your post, I was puzzled by the following statement – “Finally, there is a never ending problem of convincing customers that the 80-100% mulch mixes that they are getting from the municipalities’ waste recycling is mostly deadly to trees that are canned in it.”
I’ve been trying to increase the mulch around my fruit trees this year, and I know you’re an advocate of wood chips and mulch. Are we doing something wrong? Sounds like an ominous warning….. I’d love to know your thoughts on the matter. Should we stop utilizing the mulches from green waste recycling?
Best wishes for a healthy and prosperous New Year!
Hi Shawn,
I think the key part was that it was talking about trees put in pots (“canned”) that contain just mulch from a municipality’s green waste recycling program. I’ve tried to grow vegetable and fruit tree seedlings in 100% compost from the Miramar facility in San Diego and it did not go well, but if you read the Miramar webpage they say specifically not to do this. They advise to both thoroughly water their compost and mulch products upon application, and also that their compost should be mixed with other elements in order to be used as part of potting media. I’ve done this mixing and gotten good results with Miramar compost for many years (although my own compost has always done even better). (See my post, “Adding soil and compost to seed-starting mixes.”)
I haven’t used mulch or compost from a green waste recycling facility for the last year or two, but I used lots of it over the previous ten years and never saw any problems. I think we just need to make sure to use it correctly.
Greg I’ve just found your blog and it’s great. I’m a big fan of Walter Anderson’s especially living in Ramona I’ve purchased a lot from them. Are there any other nurseries in San Diego area that you recommend?
All the best-
Hi Chris,
Nurseries are like bookstores in that they each have a different feel and specialty, and they are almost all good in some way. That being said, for my purposes of primarily growing fruit trees and vegetables, as well as for my Ramona location, I like Walter Andersen’s, and I also like El Plantio in Escondido, and sometimes I also visit Armstrong (Rancho Penasquitos).
There are some other nurseries that I like in the southern and northern parts of San Diego County too, and some of them are great places only for narrow needs, such as uncommon avocados, or irrigation materials. Let me know if you’d like any opinions in those or other areas.
What fantastic information. I missed the bareroot window this year. I would like to plant three fruit trees probably an Apple, a plum and a peach tree. I live in Lancaster, climate of extremes.
Any recommendation?
Hello Greg, I am a recent reader of your website. Thanks for your dedication to sharing information. I was close to becoming a Fallbrook Avocado farmer in the mid-1970’s; did not work out. Then moved to the foothills of Arcadia and discovered the Reed variety; what a stroke of luck, and a great climate and soil. Today I am in Laguna Beach on a hillside and mini-banana-belt weather. 2 Reeds, Haas, a Fruete and about to add a Zutano for year round fruit. Whereas I have bought from Durlings and La Verne (Richard Wilson is great), I now use Clausen Nursery in Vista. They are more of a Consumer-friendly nursery. Unsure why trees from local nursery’s or Hm Depot are a bust. Do you have a copy of Frank Koch’s Avocado Grower Handbook cira 1980 ?
Hi Gary,
Thanks for writing. I know the foothills of Arcadia, as I grew up in the foothills of Glendora. Yes, great climate and soil.
Richard Wilson is great, indeed. He really cares about what he’s doing there at La Verne Nursery.
A few years back, my mother-in-law found me a pristine copy of Koch’s Avocado Handbook. I love it, and I refer to it often. This year I’m trying out some of Koch’s girdling suggestions on my Fuerte.
Gary,
I am also in Laguna Beach and trying to grow an avacado tree for 6-7 yrs now and no luck! My Durling Haas has canker disease, I think, and wonder if you have any idea what I should buy now? I’m on a canyon and it gets windy and chilly. Maybe I need to give up and get something different. I have Wash orange, Ruby Red grapefruit, lemon and lime tree doing great!?.
Hi Kim,
Not sure if you were really asking Gary or me (Greg), but here are some posts to give you ideas for avocado varieties to plant:
“What’s the best kind of avocado to grow?”: https://gregalder.com/yardposts/whats-the-best-kind-of-avocado-to-grow/
“Avocado varieties for year-round harvest”: https://gregalder.com/yardposts/avocado-varieties-for-year-round-harvest/
Don’t give up on avocados! Most often, people in Southern California who have trouble growing avocados either don’t water often enough in the months after planting or they need to plant on a mound because the soil is poor or of poor drainage. See this post for advice about planting a new avocado: https://gregalder.com/yardposts/how-to-plant-and-stake-an-avocado-tree/
I’m a plant merchandiser in Nv. My company has a contract with Home Depot to set the plants shipped to them from various nurseries. My company specifically does flowering shrubs, evergreens, cacti/succulents, euonymus and boxwoods, bare root fruits and vegetables, bulbs, fruiting shrubs, and trees, including fruit trees. Another company does strictly vegetables and herbs, and a third does ”color.” My company receives product from five different nurseries, easily. During the busy season we get shipments almost everyday. After memorial day it slows down a bit (I’m in Reno, which is a very specific growing season). We don’t know what or when things will get shipped to us, aside from the general knowledge of bulbs come in early spring, fruit trees tend to stop at the beginning of summer, etc. The area manager gets routing about once a week but as for what’s on the shipment it depends on the nursery and how specific they want to get. If you want to get something good at a box store you’re best bet is to go around noon at least once a week. Don’t bother asking any of the employees any question (and DON’T ask the vendors. We might know, but we do NOT have the time to answer you. It’s unfortunate. Also, we only work a fraction of the product and we’re at each store for a fraction of the day. It’s really hard to keep track of what’s available.) You might luck out and get a HD employee who’s got some knowledge, but the way the box stores operate makes it a gamble, as you pointed out. They are not trained to do much beyond point you to product and help you load stuff up. Most of them have a million tasks completely unrelated to customer service. You are a 100% right about shopping the box stores if you already know plants. Otherwise, go to your local nursery. You’ll get so much more than your buying for the extra money. At the very least you’ll get an employee who isn’t treated like anything more than a worker bee. That alone will make all the difference. Excellent article! I enjoyed reading it.
Hi Amy,
I really appreciate your taking the time to give us this perspective. And I’m taking a special mental note on this: “If you want to get something good at a box store, your best bet is to go around noon at least once a week.”
On a side note: My brother and his family live in Reno and garden there and through them I’ve observed exactly as you say, that it has “a very specific growing season.” They got snow in June this year! Not only that, but it was while they were down in Southern California visiting us. Needless to say, they returned home to find many of their vegetable plants zapped.
I had a bumper crop of fruit on my lemon guava this year, and was salivating at the thought of finally getting my fill of them. Within a matter of one or two weeks, the squirrels had discovered and completely cleaned off every last guava from the tree (they weren’t even ripe yet). I know that this is the curse of many gardeners, so I shouldn’t wallow in self-pity for too long. I’m wondering, however, if you have any suggestions for what I might try next year to save at least part of the fruit for myself. I’m sure that the next stop for these freeloaders will be my figs and Malaysian red guavas -they just haven’t found them yet.
Hi Robert,
Oh my, can I relate. Check out this post: https://gregalder.com/yardposts/dealing-with-squirrels-in-a-food-garden/
Hi Greg
My name is Jorge Rocha, and I’m with Hillcrest CC in Los Angeles
I am looking for some fruit trees and was wondering if you could help me out?
Hi Greg
I am looking for a Joey Avocado. I hear they are cold tolerant down to 15-18 degrees. Do you know any nursey in So Cal that carries them? Have you planted them? I enjoy your posts very much, thanks for the great info on gardening. I have learned a lot.
Hi Minerva,
Thank you. I don’t know of anyone growing the Joey avocado in Southern California, but the variety seems similar to a few varieties that many people do grow here: Mexicola, Mexicola Grande (3-1-1), and Stewart. In fact, Stewart comes from Mentone, which is not too far from you. All of these varieties are known to handle cold well. Mexicola has the smallest but earliest ripening fruit; Stewart has the best-tasting fruit, to me. Mexicola Grande (3-1-1) is right in the middle. All three of these varieties are widely available at nurseries in Southern California.
Here is my video profile of Mexicola: https://youtu.be/F_KehYkxt2E
Here is my video profile of Stewart: https://youtu.be/iHwgGIvrEDc
Hi Greg,
Thanks for the fantastic info and on-going great content and advice you post. I’ve been following your blog for about a year now and have followed a lot of your advice and ideas to get great to good to middling (my fault when middling ;)) harvests on a bunch of stuff. And I’ve gotten my kids back into gardening too!
I was wondering if there are any nurseries you would recommend in the Irvine, Lake Forest, Tustin area? I am going to Green Thumb Nursery in Lake Forest tomorrow and have had a good experience there but haven’t bought any fruit trees. Considering buying a few and will look around for good varieties (with a lot of your advice from this blog) but wanted to check if you had any nursery you know around here that you’d recommend.
Thanks for your advice and help as always!
Hi MB,
Thank you! I wish I could give better firsthand information here, but I only know some nurseries in your area secondhand. I keep meaning to stop by and visit some when I’m in the area or passing through. I will definitely take the time to do that soon. The good news (or bad news, depending on your perspective) is that most retail nurseries in all of Southern California sell fruit trees grown by the same few wholesale growers.
Thanks Greg! Appreciate the response.
I found a lot of great info from your multiple posts on citrus and fruit trees and we are now the proud owners of 4 stone fruit trees including a Spice Zee Nectaplum 🙂 … One of them has 4 different varieties on the same rootstock!
Didn’t buy a lot since we are going to have to keep them in their containers for a few more months since we will be moving soon (hopefully). We unfortunately missed the bare-root season but hope we got good trees anyways.
I am about to head out to a nursery with my younger daughter since I was able to track down a Kishu Mandarin 🙂 ..
I was wondering if you had any advice on the varieties of lemons/limes that work well here in Southern California? The house we are currently in had a lime bush (not identifiable – for me at least) but that died about a year ago (suddenly). I want to buy at least a lime and a lemon for our new place. I’m thinking of doing the Bearss Lime (based on your blog) but don’t know enough to select a lemon. I’m not sure the standard Myer lemon will work for us since my wife doesn’t like it because of its thick skin 🙂 .. we are looking for a thinner skinned lemon that’s good for cooking and also making lemonade. Pickling lemons is a distant third and (so far) not real use case :). Any advice is welcome. Thanks again for your great blog and multiple responses to folks. Super useful!
Hi MB,
Sounds like everything is going well. Two kinds of lemons are most common around here: Eureka and Lisbon. They are the types you’re familiar with at the grocery store. I bet you’d be happy with either variety. A fun spin on these is the Variegated Pink Fleshed Eureka lemon, which has green and white leaves, and green/yellow and white striped skin with pink flesh inside. The flavor is regular lemon. It’s widely available at nurseries.
I’ve always thought of Meyer lemons as being thin skinned compared to the true lemons like Eureka and Lisbon, but maybe they’re not always this way.
Hi just found your web site. I live in Northern ID, I picked up bare root fruit trees and some are dwarfs. After reading some of your info I realize I may have made a huge mistake. Do I plant them or trash them and start over?
When trees come in they are gone fast around here. People are starting to prepare for food shortages now and everything is flying off the selves.
I had great success growing lemon and lime trees in pots and wintering them in the house near a good lighted window.
I’m having a really difficult time finding trees, any suggestions? Thanks, Valerie
WANTING TO PLANT FRUIT TREES IN SAUSALITO…JUST NORTH OF SAN FRANCISCO
APPLE PEAR CHERRY APRICOT LIME LEMON ORANGE AVOCADO
ANY SUGGESTION PER VARIETY AND TYPES?
WE LOOK OUT OVER THE SAN FRANCISCO BAY
HELP & THANKS
They need to help Home Depot. Put real information on the tags. Setup a website that goes into more detail. Work with the store to improve the buying experience.
When I buy a power tool from Home Depot, I don’t expect the kid sweeping to floor to know it’s capabilities. I look at the label on the box.