Feedindy,

I wish fruit trees was that easy to grow. I had to put lots of care in my trees to be able to get good quality fruits. Dormant copper spray in early Spring before buds break, Spectracideî 32oz Triazicide Once and Done Concentrate after petals fall and every two weeks and stop about 3 weeks before harvest. Thin out fruits every 6 inches for better quality. Spray immunox for brown rot if it is too humid near harvest time. If you want to grow less care tree then try Asian or American persimmons, Jujube tree, or paw paw.
Tony

I don't think the retail nursery is as important as the wholesaler (mislabeling aside). There is no difference if I pick up at Dave Wilson tree from Home Depot, Summer Winds (local nursery) or online. It's all the same stock.

Your issue may be not putting any care into the trees.....

melikeeatplants,

I generally agree that the wholesaler is more important than the retailer ... if you buy the trees shortly after they arrive and if you don't have any questions.

We never have trees from Dave Wilson at our big box stores in the northeast and the suppliers are not necessarily reputable wholesalers of fruit trees. Trees are notoriously labeled falsely, and not because of customers switching labels, they are securely fastened and I see no reason someone would do that.

They also have no clue about best varieties for the specific weather in areas they sell them- usually just opting to sell mediocre varieties that function in colder climates.

Unfortunately, this is also a problem with local nurseries as well. Better to buy bare root trees from reputable fruit tree nurseries, ordering in late summer for delivery the following spring or fall.

If you don't want to put in the time to care for the trees, you may want to stick to a couple species that are relatively trouble free, like pears (some sites) and Asian pears (most sites- get a Korean Giant, AKA Olympic).

If you have a weed free sod (no clover, few dandelions) you could get lucky with peaches as well, but you will need to thin them- but then you also would need to thin the pears.

I believe Tonytran's spray schedule is probably excessive most anywhere in the country and certainly is in the northeast. Immunox is not very good for brown rot except at the blossom stage (blossom blight, which has never been a problem for me at scores and scores of sites)- stick with Monterey Fungus Fighter, one spray about a month before stone fruit ripens and see if that isn't adequate.

Thanks for your responses so far. Well although the trees only had one superb season, each one was able to more than pay for itself in fruit, so I was happy I have them. But now they do nothing so I was thinking of chopping them down. We heat our home by firewood, so they wouldn't go to waste. Spraying them with stuff is not really my thing. Everything else in my yard is planted and left with no sprays and minimal pruning and it's been fun to experiment to find plants that just want to thrive and produce fruit with no assistance in my yard. So far I'm surrounded by fig trees and all kinds of berries that don't require any assistance from me. Even in my veggie/ herb garden, I don't do more than just pulling a few weeds by hand and we have veggies all summer. Again thanks so much for your responses so far.

I hope this isn't off topic but I say it for the benifit of those who work at it and still get bad or no fruit. Many if not most fruit and nut trees are grafted but ALL dwarf trees are. Unlike normal trees,dwarfs are on roots that don't alow them to flurish. That makes dwarfs even a bigger challenge than their normal size bretheren. The rootstock has a strangle-hold on the prefectly normal fruit bareing top making it less robust in desease,insect and weather conditions. As is true of any grafted plant,the rootstock will put out offspring of their own in the form of suckers that will grow much faster than the desirable wood. An unsuspecting gardener might prune away desirable wood to alow the healther looking rootstock to replace it. They wind up with a strange tree that doesn't produce good fruit or often no fruit at all. That's over simplafied but hopfully conveys the intended message.

For my location, weather is the biggest problem. More often than not, we get frosts during bloom time that kill most of the buds. Even if there isn't a frost, I've seen lack of honey bees during cold, overcast weather patterns at bloom. Occasionally we get major ice storms or deep freezes that kill fruit buds in late winter.

Even if fruit does set, inconsistent rainfall throughout the season is the norm. We almost always get a month period with very little rain followed by a weeks of constant rain and little sun. To little or too much rain can make big difference to the fruit quality. Sometimes you need to water the trees during drought periods to make sure the fruit stays on, let alone develop properly

One year everything actually went right until we had a major
wind storm in mid august that blew most of the unripened fruit onto the ground. It's always got to be something. :-(

As far as looks, I think you can anticipate ugly fruit if you don't spray them with some kind of anti-fungal compound. Apples in particular can look very ugly until you wash off the sooty blotch and fly speck fungi. Just because they look bad on the outside doesn't mean they are on the inside!

I have had great success with Home Depot and Lowes apple trees. I don't think it matters where they come from as long as they are healthy. If you are going to be a no spray person having success at growing most fruit is not going to happen. You can go on line and order certain disease resistance trees, but bugs will still be an issue and some disease issues will occur.

If you don't want to do any work on them, there is no reason to expect your outcomes to change. People who have success with fruit are people who have a passion for it and put in the hours. Just like being good at golf, cooking, etc.

I bought a Candice grape from them once that has done nothing but struggle to survive. Every year it is severely chlorotic and I have to assume that they didn't supply grapes with the proper rootstock to live in our calcareous soil. Other grapes in the area thrive. This isn't a big surprise when you see all of the blue berry plants they are unloading on the public that will plant them in soil with 10-40% lime and a ph that wont budge from 7.8. It's the little things that can make a big difference with plants and I think that the big box stores overlook this.

i am no fruit expert ...

but are you shopping bigboxstore at this time of year... if you are .. you are setting setting yourself up for a hard run at success ...

i see no problem.. labeling aside.. buying stock when it is freshly shipped in ... and no trees are shipped in.. in july/august ... so you are buying bargain stock that has had.. most likely.. less than perfect care.. since early spring delivery ....

sometimes they get an assortment in fall ... and fresh stock always responds best ...

you said: I am completely hands off as a gardener. .... without putting in much care to them.... I plant them and I do not prune or spray them with anything.

i think you know.. or should.. the spraying and care regimen.. that fruit production requires ... so i dont understand why you complain ... at your result ...

and dont get me wrong... i do it EXACTLY like you do ... and i get the same result ... BUT THAT IS ALL I EXPECT ... you seem to be expecting more ... and i dont think that is going to happen.. and it has nothing to do with bigboxstore ...

BTW.. this horrible winter.. in my MI ... not a single trees flowered ... dont forget winter.. has an impact on production ...

i ended up in this predicament.. because grandpa.. kept having trees sent to the kids.. and we had fun planting them ... they are now teenagers.. and frankly ... we are still waiting for something on many of the trees.. lol .. g pa and the kids had fun with it all ... so the memories are set .. but i am not interested in multiple spraying... proper pruning... proper watering on sand... etc .. and i dont expect.. much of a success ...

g pa has passed... the kids are teens... and rarely go out in sunlight... but we still.. once or twice a year.. talk about g pa and the trees ... who cares if we get fruit ....

good luck..

ken

We have purchased around 18 fruit trees at Lowe’s in the last 4 years.

We pruned and fertilized as directed and have no Fruit on any of them. Not only do they not produce fruit, they don’t even bloom. We bought three trees from a local garden center and in one year we have apples! We are not tree experts but these trees are healthy and thriving.. but no blooms = no fruit!!

we planted the trees for fruit!! And are frustrated with the waste of time and expense. When we went to Lowe’s they kept saying it would take a few years. Hmmm, the. Why did the new trees bloom and produce fruit after one year???

We will not buy trees from Lowe’s again.

As you might have noticed from several previous responses, growing fruit trees is not as simple as buying the tree, digging a hole, planting and then waiting a couple of years to harvest bushels of great fruit!

First and foremost, not all fruit trees grow well everywhere. You have to make sure you are getting varieties that are suitable for your location..........have the appropriate chill units, don't bloom so early as to be damaged be late frosts and fruit that ripens in a timely fashion for your climate (eg. adequate summer heat). Because the box stores purchase from large wholesalers for a big block of stores, they just bring in what's available......not necessarily what works well for you and where you live.

Second, with the exception of some stone fruits (peaches, apricots, a few plums) most popular home fruit trees are not self-fertile and require a second and different variety for cross pollination. And these must have coinciding bloom times. No pollination partner = no fruit!!

Finally, if the previous two issues have been properly addressed, you need to make sure you have adequate insects available for pollination to occur. Many fruit trees bloom too early for honeybees or bumble bees to be active so you have to encourage orchard mason bees, which are active very early in spring.

Most fruit trees are also prone to a lot of disease and insect issues that can affect both blooming, fruit production and fruit quality. It is possible to grow fruit trees without spraying but it is hard to maintain healthy trees without some pesticidal intervention. Selecting those that are most disease resistant helps but is no guarantee. And insects - plum curculio, coddling moths, apple maggots, tent caterpillars, etc. - can appear no matter what you do.

Most box stores also sell their fruit trees bare root or with the roots encased in plastic 'body bags'. These need to have been stored after harvesting properly and planted before they emerge from dormancy (late winter/very early spring). These also tend to be rather young trees and it is recommended you not allow them fruit for at least 3 years so that they can mature and develop a healthy root system.

Long story short, you are never assured of the proper type or quality of fruit trees purchased at the box stores. They are not plant nurseries, do not get to pick and choose what they sell, are typically staffed by salespeople that have no knowledge of plants or fruits, nor are the plants necessarily given proper care once on the property. It's pretty much hit or miss!! And growing fruit trees successfully does require some knowledge. Don't blame the supplier if you haven't done any research and your necessary due diligence :-)

I appreciate you responding to my thread. But we have pruned, sprayed and fertilized as directed. The trees don’t get any blooms. They are full of beautiful green leaves. Insects and other creatures cannot pollinate them became they never bloom.

We made sure to get trees that were compatible to allow Them to be productive.

And I guess my question is why would a supplier sell trees that are not able to grow in the region? we did not buy exotic fruit, we have gala, honey-crisp, pinklady, red and yellow delicious apples also Bartlett an Kiefer pear..

i got the fertilizer spikes and spray that was recommended.

perhaps I was hasty in blaming the store, but when three trees from another supplier are producing it makes a person wonder.

Thanks again.

As I said, both the suitabilty AND the quality may be lacking in box store trees. Since I have no idea where on the planet you are located, I can't comment on how suitable those tree varieties may be for you. It could be that the trees are just too young or it could be weather related - a cold snap or late freeze when the flower buds were forming.

If you want apples in a short amount of time, known as precocious I have a list of some of them. The more well known are:

Braeburn, Empire, Cortland, Cox's Orange Pippin, Zestar, Jonathan, Granny Smith, Haralson, and Rome.

I have a Rome from Burpee's which bloomed two weeks after I planted the bareroot seedling. I'd recommend the Cox's Orange Pippin. It's precocious and a vigorous grower and many people say it's the best tasting apple. It's the only apple that my wife and I both liked! The reason it's not popular is because it gets russet when young and later if your ground doesn't have enough boron for its liking. But if you peel apples who knew!

Also on the list is Redfield a red fleshed apple. I grafted one last year. It only grew 3 inches on top of the rootstock. This spring it budded out and then produced 1 flower.

HU-686847512, Other than chill hours being the problem (I don't know where you live but all of the trees you listed need chill and unfortunately nurseries do sell varieties that don't grow well in the area sometimes), it could be a fertilizer issue.

I don't know what fertilizing spikes you are using or what "fertilizing as directed" exactly means, but different components of fertilizers is what encourages flowering:

https://homeguides.sfgate.com/fertilizer-element-encourages-flowering-growth-plants-76453.html

It is likely that your trees are fine but have a nutrient deficiency preventing flowering. It is likely something specific to your soil. I don't know much about apples specifically, but look to add more phosphorus and less Nitrogen.

If you are serious about getting fruit. Do a soil test (amazon has one for $25) and only add the nutrients that your soil is missing.

Not sure why your other 3 trees are doing well, could be they are in a different spot or on better root stock. My Lowes, Home Depot, Costco, and 3 local nurseries all get trees from the same 3rd party growers, so the grower is what really matters.

It is highly unlikely that lack of "proper" fertilization is preventing flowering. Abandoned fruit trees that receive no ferts at all are able to bloom perfectly well. It is the tree's biological imperative to reproduce and very little to do with available soil nutrients will obstruct or prevent that. Nutrient deficiencies are far more likely to show up as stunted growth, lack of overall vigor or discolored/chlorotic foliage. And since you say your trees are producing plenty of lush, green foliage, this is probably not the case.

I would never discourage anyone from getting a soil test. But get a professional soil test done, not a home test kit. They are notoriously inaccurate!! A professional test will tell you exactly what and how much to add, if anything is lacking. And as a further fertilizing note, don't use the fertilizer spikes - they are very ineffective. Concentrating any nutrient application to a specific area or two is not getting the nutrients to where they need to be, which is to the exterior, fine feeder roots. If you still have spikes left, before you use them again grind them up/pulverize them and then sprinkle around the dripline and water in well.

Just an FYI, but better independent retail nurseries do not share the same vendors as do the box stores or Costco. I have been in the nursery industry on both the wholesale and retail side for several decades and spent time as a buyer. None of my vendors would consider selling to a box store or Costco. And some of the national brands you might see being sold there are of an inferior or second grade - not the same quality of plant you see in your nursery :-)

There is a lot more to the wholesale nursery trade than meets the eye..........

HU-686847512

None of the apples on your list are on my list of precocious apples, except that Golden Delicious is sometimes mentioned, but from my experience is slow to produce fruit. I have a Honeycrisp on semi-dwarf rootstock. That apple is considered hard to grow. Mine is in it's fifth year and has one apple on it, which may fall off. Last year there were very few blossoms on that tree, only one apple developed and it fell off in a week or two.

Which brings up the question: what rootstocks are your apples on, by that I mean what size.

As far as the pears there's a saying: You plant pears for your heirs. My 5 year old semi-dwarf Bartlett hasn't blossomed either.

It's my opinion that the most important thing in getting apple trees to bloom is the variety. It's said that the most important thing is the rootstock which is not accurate. The saying is that apples grown from seed or on full size rootstocks take up to 10 years to produce fruit. The truth is that in large studies over many years show that apples grown from seed will produce fruit in 2-4 years if the parents are both precocious apples. The apples used were Wagener, Rome, Esopus, Ben Davis, and Jonathan.

I would guess that you just need to be patient. Odds are you'll get fruit on your trees at an appropriate age for that variety. When you're picking varieties to grow there are many things to consider other than what variety you want to share with the family. Some varieties are slow growing, some are biennial bearing ( produce fruit every other year ) and as we see some take longer to produce fruit. I heard a story that when Baldwin apples were popular in New England they planted Wagener's in between Baldwins so the orchard produced something in the many years it took the Baldwins to fruit.

gardengal48, All the CA fruit tree growers I know of sell to Home Depot and Lowes here in the Bay Area. Four Winds, Dave Wilson, Melo growers, etc... I see the same exact brands of trees everywhere. Lowes and Home Depot even have the same exact rare tropicals as the local nurseries (like guavas and sapotes). The difference I see, is that my local nurseries have a larger selection of varieties of stone fruits and they are way more expensive (sometimes 3x more for the same tree).

Where I do see a difference in suppliers is with veggies and herbs... the local nurseries have a wide selection of veggies from local suppliers where HD and Lowes just have Bonnie. So while I gladly buy fruit trees from the big box stores, I almost never buy other edibles.

I don't have inside knowledge, but I love going to nurseries (pretty sure I've been to every half way decent one around) and I've planted 35+ fruit trees this year. I actually ordered a lot of things from the PNW because the selection was better (One Green World and Rain Tree), so it is very possible you just have better nurseries up there.

IMHO Big box store fruit trees are a waste of money. A critical factor in selecting trees is the rootstock, information which is not normally available at the big box stores. Asking the store employee just gets you a blank look. This is assuming the variety sold is actually correct for your zone which is often not the case.

I've found buying bare root from a nursery IN YOUR SAME ZONE provides the greatest opportunity for success. I once bought 50 cherry trees from a nursery in Washington state rated "Zone 4" and they all died the 2nd winter. Conversely, I have had very few failures with trees from a nursery in a neighboring state also in Zone 4.

My experience in Zone 4 has been that apples take a lot of attention and maintenance while plums, cherries, and pears require pruning but little else.

Robin, your experience points out it is not very practical (or accurate) to make broadbased assumptions :-) I'd have to guess that in different regions of the country, box stores are managed/stocked differently. The fruit trees available in the box stores in my area come from no vendors I recognize by name. And are extremely limited in their selection and not always applicable to the region. And nothing that could be remotely considered as out of the mainstream. They just do not compete very successfully on any kind of plant stock compared to independent retail nurseries here.

One issue that hasn't yet been addressed is the limitations on importing nursery stock into CA. Because of its significant agricultural presence, the CDFA poses more restrictions on the sourcing of nursery stock, especially fruits and berries, than just about anywhere else. That might be a reason you are seeing many more local vendors at the box stores than we do up north :) (Although WA state does have its own share of imported plant restrictions)

One more problem with Big Box Store garden centers is that they often apply the variety tags with the store logo to the trees when they arrive from the nursery, if they don't have the correct tag for the variety they will pick something that they think is close. In other words it is likely an apple, but may not be the variety they claim, I have seen examples of this with tags claiming the plant is a thornless blackberry, just to have the plant it is attached to be covered with thorns.

Remember these big box stores are in the business of selling you plants, as long as it lives for a a few months that is all they care about. If it dies after a couple of years because it can't tolerate local conditions, diseases pressures, etc then they get to sell you another one.