Actually, while I seem to remember a long thread about them, and a couple of their people saying they were former employees, mention of being sued by Ty Ty for sharing insider info about them, etc. etc..... I just looked at their DG profile for both Willis Orchards and Paradise Palm co, and they have about a 50% rating on average.

Link below - click on "Paradise Palm Co" link to the right to see that their ratings are about 50/50 average between the two (both are pretty abysmal)

Here is a link that might be useful: DG review of WO/PP

I bought 2 fig trees from willis 2 years ago. 1 Italian Everbearing, and 1 Black Mission. Both fruited this year, not even close to what they were supposed to be. Maybe they are Celeste but thats not what I wanted. I will never purchase from them again.

They are not TyTy but TyTy appears to have dozens of other names and sites this year. Either that or there are a lot of on-line nurseries with the exact same varieties listed with the same pictures and descriptions as TyTy.

My experience with Willis has been good but I was one of their first customers. A lot of the reviews they have been getting have been bad. Mixed in with the bad ones are people who ordered and then canceled their orders after reading reviews. Then they give a negative rating after canceling the order.

Willis has four trees I would love to purchase and plant right now.

However with all the negative feedback for Willis since my purchase I am hesitant to order from them, I live in an extreme climate. If they sent me the wrong tree I may get no fruit. No guarantee or reassurance from them makes it worth planting a tree and having to dig it up and plant another after its been in the ground for two to three years.

Still I feel tempted as they are the only nursery that has the trees I want this time of year.

Hesitant but tempted.

Just for the sake of curiosity, can you say which trees you are looking for? Maybe someone else nearby will have suggestions for alternate sources.

I bought 4 trees from Willis last Fall. The Vdb and Panache' were correct cultivars.The jury is still out on the Black Jack and Italian Everbearing. They look exactly the same, but I'll know for sure next year. I'd be a little skeptical, considering what others have posted in the past

satellitehead lots of people sell what I'm looking for but I would rather plant now instead of waiting till February or March.

Just for instance where else can I find a Pakistani Mulberry 6'-7' tall this time of year. Willis can ship now and the last time I tried to order one was from EL and it was on back order. I waited for five months and their supplier who promised to send them some never did. But Willis has them in stock.
Still I would much rather deal with some one I can have more assurance in. I'm not saying I'm going to buy from them again but I am very tempted.

I have all the figs I can handle, either have them or have cuttings promised.

Now I am looking for oriental persimmons. Few nurseries have any but the most common and I need cold hardy varieties.
Willis has two that will grow in zone six, I am on the cold edge of seven. There are better ones than they have, but I am having trouble finding them on the net. None locally.
Ox

I dug through the following list some weeks ago desperately seeking which variety of figs are out there. To find each nursery, I entered the name of the nursery in Google and 90% of them returned the nursery website. All of these are recommended nurseries

Bay Laurel Nursery
Burnt Ridge Nursery
Clifton's Nursery
Cloud Mountain Nursery
Dave Wilson Nursery
Dinter Nursery
Edible Landscaping
Encanto Farms Nursery
Fannick's Nursery
Grimo Nut Nursery
Hidden Springs Nursery
Italian Fig Trees Nursery
Johnson Nursery
Just Fruits and Exotics - no shipping to California
La Verne Nursery
One Green World Nursery
Paradise Nursery - closed 2007 (website still open)
Parks Nursery
Perry's Nursery
Raintree Nursery
Rolling River Nursery
Sanhedrin Nursery
Territorial Seed Nursery
Wentworth Nursery
Whitman Nursery

Linked below is one of the nurseries I found which had several mulberries - but there were one or two other sites in the list which had 2x or 3x as many. I see they also have Pakistani mulberry. You might give that a shot also?

Seriously, though, have a look at the list above. I know it is tedius work to search each one, but ... It was worth it for me. The variety is spectacular for figs and for mulberries.

Here is a link that might be useful: Burnt Ridge Nurseries (Mulberries)

oxankle I guess I did not fully answer your question as you also asked about service received. I called and spoke with them before my purchase and got right through. In fact I called several times before my purchase and got right through each time.

I paid with PayPal and PayPal was having a problem with their shipping notification at the time so I called again and got right through to a person again. They looked up the tracking number and gave it to me and all was well.

To top it off the trees were all of good quality and where what I ordered.

Still that was some time ago so your mileage may vary and they have gotten a lot of bad press since then. To me a lot of the negatives can be explained. In my part of the country you can plant any time of year but taking a tree from out of state and planting in our summer is a bad idea. Our 110deg F days kill bare root trees unless you do everything right and then they still may die. People order from Willis during the winter months because they are often the only source at the time.

The way I see it bare root trees require immediate attention when they arrive.
If some one can't give them the immediate attention they need they should not order because they probably will die. I think thats one of the reasons Willis has so many negatives at the Garden Watchdog.
They ship when others don't ship which is good for people like me. I want my trees to be in the ground growing roots as long before our summer hits to give my trees the best chance of survival and Willis is the only who ships now when I need them. Others list them but they are for spring 2010 delivery. They haven't even received the trees from their suppliers yet. Even if I purchase elsewhere I still may not get what I order because they don't know if they are going to get them until they arrive.

Planting bare root trees in the spring when it can be 110deg F in the shade is iffy and ordering now from Willis is iffy if I go by the experience of others.

If you are truly giving serious thought to buying from them give them a call. Most of those who have given negatives say they can't get through by phone and Willis says they always pick up ASAP as was my experience. If you get right through to a person talk to them and asks them whatever you want about the trees you want to purchase. If they are still the company and people I purchased from they will answer right away and put someone on the phone who will be friendly and answer all of your questions or call you back when they are available.

If you call them please post your experience here.

Check with Bass, I think he has persimmons. And try a Fuyu, you will love it.

satellitehead I was not ignoring you. I wrote this and the forum would not let me post again until someone else had posted.

I am familiar with most of those nurseries. I already called more than half of the nurseries you listed including Burnt Ridge while looking for the trees on my list. They are for spring 2010 delivery and they have none currently in stock.

I may check on a few of the ones I have not called at the Garden Watchdog. If any of them have good reps and have what I want now I will for sure place an order with one of them before I would with Willis.

let me poke arond locally. the guy who started our local Atlanta_Fruits yahoo group is a huge mulberry nut. i will send an email out to the list and ask him if he has recommendation for a place to go.

i hope you don't take my suggestions the wrong way. i'm sure you've searched high and low, i'm just hoping to offer a suggestion that maybe you haven't tried.