Poole, you've got a couple solid nurseries in GA between Isons and Johnson Nursery. McKenzie in South Carolina specializes in citrus, especially hardy citrus -- he has a zone 8 commercial citrus orchard -- but sells other fruits as well. My favorite nursery is Hidden Springs in Tennessee. I like Edible Landscaping a lot, too. I've gotten good customer service and very nice, healthy trees from Starks Bros, but because of insects and diseases nothing I bought from them has done any good for me. After realizing the poor returns and how high maintenance the trees with the glossy photos the fruits of which I was used to buying in supermarkets from very different climates, grown under very different management far away are, I'm now replacing those things I bought from Starks Bros with the kind of trees that Hidden Springs and Edible Landscaping specialize in, great fruits that I think really are much better suited to the Southeast and to backyard style management. I haven't yet bought anything from Nolin Nursery in KY, but they also specialize in some things I wish I had given more attention to early on. If you're looking at standard/common fruits (similar to what Starks Bros sells), fruittreefarm.com in TN seems to have a really good selection and good prices, but I haven't ever bought from them either.

Hi Fresnoian, I'm one too! Sorry don't know which nursery sells grafted mac nut trees online, you can get seedling's easier though or even fresh seeds. But the draw backs of seedlings, is they take longer to fruit, maybe 8-10+? years. Grafted tree, can produce small amount of a nuts, maybe the second or 3rd year. Then the older/mature the tree becomes, the more nuts, you'll have to share with friends and family. but only if you don't have them all to yourself ;) This nursery has some http://sweettreessomis.com/products/macadamia-nut-beaumont I'm sure other online nursery has them too, just Google for grafted mac nut trees for sale, many site should pop up. You know our Lowes and HD stores, that I have been to lately, carries fruits and nuts trees from laverne nursery down in SD county. You can call up either of the HD or Lowes, closest to you. Ask for the plant order person or garden manger, and ask them to order a grafted mac tree for you from laverne nursery on their next order from them. They shouldn't charge you anything, and they will most likely informed you when they get their orders in. I went to the Lowes at Clovis & Shaw in Clovis county, then the Lowes over there by River park. The one by river park has more fruit trees option, than the Clovis one. But both didn't have what I was hoping to find, a cherimoya plant. I'm going to call them up today, to one of the big box stores and ask them to order a grafted cherimoya plant for me, on their next order from laverne nursery. BTW, what kind of tropical fruit trees do you already have here in Fresno and are they in ground plants or pot culture? As for me, I have a few variety of guavas, a few varieties of passion fruit vines, small grafted "selma" cherimoya, grafted "lindstrom" atemoya, kari starfruit/carombola, wax apple "king kong", lucoma sapote(Pouteria lucoma), air layer lychee, grafted longan, 7 varieties of dragon fruit, purple sugarcane and lots of pups from the same mat, raja puri banana, dwarf namwah banana, jackfruit seedlings, lemon guava, white sapote seedling, rain forest plum(eugeinia candolleana), eugenia brasiliensis/grumichama, agrafted Nom DocMai mango tree, dwarf TR hovey papaya and maybe a few others, can't think of atm. I know most of these things will never fruit, but it's fun having such rare stuff, not commonly found here in most of Fresno's people hands/backyards.

Greetings: Years ago I worked for a bare-root nursery that propagated grapevines. We did hardwood cuttings. The cuttings were treated on the basal end with a rooting hormone. Then they were stuck in beds of sand in a greenhouse in February-March and kept fairly cool. A mist system was used once the buds started to open. By mid-June they were rooted enough to transplant into the field and grown on for 2 years before digging up and selling as a dormant bare-root plant. The big issue planting in the field in June was to get water on them fast or they would burn up in the heat/sun. Not a lot of pruning was done the first year or two except to keep them to one stem only. Upon harvest, the vines would be very long so they were cut back before hauling into cold storage for grading, bundling and storing until shipped. The tops cut off were saved for future propagation and kept in cold storage too after labeling. I do not recall the spacing in the field but it was not great. The first year they do not put out much top growth anyway. My brother is a Hort teacher and his class roots out hardwood grape cuttings each spring. Not a difficult task. Without any rooting homone, you many only get 10% rooting success. He puts them right into the field in spring and leaves them be. Surprising how many root out.

btw ... you are asking in the tree forum ... in my experience.. the larger the transplant.. the longer it take to settle in .... and get established.. to grow to expectation ... especially if severely root bound.. and significant root surgery was needed.. or it was a field dug ball and burlap ... so... between a 2 footer and a 4 or 5 footer.. i would bet my shiny penny.. the 2 footer will outgrow the bigger one inside a few years.... so paying more for a few feet isnt really cost effective ... if you have acres to cover.. and a predilection for collecting.. buy small.. and buy more of all different kinds.. dont get caught up in alleged instant gratification of larger trees .... and if you do buy small.. be sure to protect them for the first few years .... ken