Our Home Depot got some bareroot trees in. They are small and as everyone knows the trees they sell are often not true to label. I purchased a nice 8'+ tall 1 1/2" caliper Anna Apple tree at A&P Nursery on Brown here last Friday. But I know its true to its label because its a Dave Wilson grown tree. I wish the local nurseries carried the trees I wanted. Only low chill varieties will reliably produce fruit here. Even so most of the trees for sale here are high chill varieties. When I ask why they sell trees that will not fruit here they say people want to buy Bing Cherry and Bartlet Pear trees and the low chill varieties don't sell. The thing is all the trees that I purchased online started out like the big wonderful tree I purchased at my local nursery. Thats the way they arrive at the online nursery I purchased the other trees from. Then they sell them to me and trim the roots and butcher the branches and cut off the top to fit them in a box. I don't blame them this is the way all the online nurseries do it. Besides the trees I received are larger and nicer than what I would get buying from most of the other online tree nurseries and I can't get the varieties I want locally. If only local nurseries would carry low chill fruit trees. THISISME wishing out loud.

It really shouldn't matter if these are purchased bare root or potted. I also think it would be difficult to find these mail order as bare root plants. I've never seen them this way. I suspect there's another reason your potted ones didn't survive. Possibly the time of the year you purchased and planted them, were they dried out in their pots for any length of time, were they watered adequately when you planted them, etc. etc. Kevin

Unless your ground is frozen, plant them outside now. They will arrive as bare root pruned plants, but if the ground is a little warm, they will set root this fall. I hope you didn't order a bunch of seedless grapes. It should be illegal to sell them in the East without an explanation that they need to be sprayed from July til harvest. At any rate, plant the grapes where your arbor is/will be. Pruning in the early years is important too.

This place isn't in New England, but I've bought bareroot trees from https://www.coldstreamfarm.net/  . They're in Michigan, so their climate is similar to New England. I've had good luck with their stock. Many of their smaller trees (the type you are looking for) are listed under deciduous SHRUBS (as opposed to TREES). Their filing system is a little odd, but their search engine works ok. https://www.coldstreamfarm.net/categories/deciduous-shrubs/dogwood-shrubs.html https://www.coldstreamfarm.net/redbud-cercis-canadensis.html