Have a look at this.

Here is a link that might be useful: WSU Master Gardener: Library / Berries, Grapes & Kiwis

Jamjam, the PNW is berry heaven. Half of the PNW is covered with wild berry bushes. It's really hard to help you without knowing more about your growing skills and your soil and climate. How do you prepare the soil? Do you water the plants in the summer? Do you mulch? Do you or your neighbors have berries that are doing well?

A lot of fruits and berries require a second cultivar in order to provide cross pollination and produce good crops - that may very well have been the problem with both the cherry and pear. Blueberries produce better with a second cultivar also. Commercial berry fields, both blueberry and other Rubus types, abound in this area so the climate and growing conditions are very conducive. Figs also grow well here and one can see massive, well-established trees in older neighborhoods. But a successful harvest with figs does require a variety that ripens well in our short and cool growing season. Success with figs is similar to success with tomates - select a variety with short harvest period and provide reflected heat.

And contrary to what your landscaper friend may have told you, most reputable retail nurseries will select and offer fruits and berries best suited to the locale. The success of their business depends on satisfied and returning customers and it is just as easy (and as cheap, if not more so) to sell locally grown stock well suited for this climate. Most of the time when plants fail it is due to "operator error" and not the nursery's fault.

Hi gardengal,
We had a second cultivar for the fruit trees- we deliberately planted a second pear.. Our neighbours have a cherry, too, in close proximity. My landscaper friend speculated that it was grafted incorrectly and that's why it won't seriously bear fruit. For the blueberry we didn't have a pair, but the entire plant just sort of perished, which was a bit scary.
As to the figs, our local nursery sells a lot of brown turkey figs, which are horrendous for this climate. We got fruit, but the frosts meant that by the time it arrived, it never got ripe or grew to its full size. It was a disaster. We've since found out that desert fig, another variety, is much better for our climate.
Lilydude, part of the problem is that I am inexperienced at berries (I've grown lots of vegetables from seed) and part of it is just getting bum merchandise. I got a jacaranda plant from our local nursery as well, and the leaves dropped off while green until the whole plant slowly died- a sign of overwatering. I've been careful not to do that, but apparently it could have happened before I even received the plant ie. while it was at the nursery- and taken a few months to impact it!
There are some terrific things about the garden centre, though. The staff is really nice and really friendly, and they have a warranty where they will replace any plant you buy if it dies, even if its a year or two later. But it really pays to super research everything before you actually buy it.

BTW, bboy thanks for the link! I was excited about it, although if you'll notice it hasn't been updated since the '90s, so there may be new varieties on the market now :)

Oh, if it helps: I'm on Southern Vancouver Island!

Your province has an agricultural ministry and a master gardener association with web sites and fruit growing information.

It's a triangle of price, quality, and size: If the price is good and the size is big, the quality will be bad; if the quality is good and the price is good, the size will be small; or if the size is good and the quality is good, the price will be expensive.

Pick 2, that's all you get! I suspect you can find better nurseries, based on your post. Try a good, locally owned one.

"Pick 2, that's all you get" That is funny, but so true, sometimes for more than just plants!
Just wanted to add that blueberries like an acidic soil so I added peat moss and fertilize with rhodo food. Mine are doing so well, I plan to add some more and they are pretty too!
Jamjam, I don't know quite where you are but Dinter's nursery in Duncan is locally owned and have such good expert staff.

Hi Novita,
I'm in Vic. The nursery that I am dealing with is local to the coast, but go figure :) Not that I am not willing to try, but it probably took you a couple of years to get fruit from your blueberries, right?
Nwnatural, its funny, this nursery has such a good reputation that I assumed they were all like that. My landscaper bud certainly thought so! ;)

Yes, the blueberries actually took a few years to get going. Everything takes longer than you think it's going to! Planted a plum tree about four years ago (bare root) and have had nothing so far. Maybe this year.....

You bought a jacaranda for Vancouver Island???

I used to live in Northern California and jacarandas were very marginally hardy enough for that climate!! That was USDA zone 9, sunset zone 17. I'd be suspicious of any nursery in Vancouver Island selling jacarandas. Were they really jacarandas and not albizias? are there established jacarandas in the area? Jacarandas are tropical trees. Vancouver Island, while not arctic, is not tropical either. Too cold, winter and summer, for a jacaranda to thrive, I would assume, unless someone can point to established and thriving jacarandas there! WITH the famous lavender trumpet blooms! Albizia (pink pompom flowers) should grow there, and the leaves resemble jacaranda, but albizias are not tropical trees; although still they can be easily killed by a cold winter here. People plant one, and then hope for warm winters while it gets established.

Point being, if it really was a jacaranda and not an albizia, then the nursery is selling stuff that's not adapted to the area. Why they'd do that with something so far off base, I just dunno. Might be it was intended as a greenhouse plant only but you bought it to plant outside, either because they didn't make it clear, or you ignored their warnings. I used to work at a nursery here, and we sold bougainvillea as a houseplant. Every time someone brought one up to the register I'd remind them that it's a houseplant here, and I swear, 99% of the time, people were SHOCKED, SHOCKED I tell you, that just because it was in the houseplant section and labeled as a houseplant that it won't survive the winters here! they'd seen it growing EVERYWHERE in Phoenix after all!

Nurseries have to sell what people will buy, after all. Some try harder than others to sell only what will do well in the area, but they can't make you buy what they think will do well if you're determined to get something else. Here the big box store garden centers are all supplied out of Georgia, and constantly bring in things that won't do nearly as well here as in Georgia, or bring things in too early in spring for us, because the decisions are largely being made in a much warmer climate. Probably less of a problem where you are as you're in the warmest climate Canada has!

And, some marginal plants will do fine most years if given extra care and attention, like figs. So nurseries sell them because knowledgeable and determined gardeners can make them work.

Please note that fruit trees need a specific second cultivar for pollination, not just any ol' cultivar. For each type of fruit, ie cherry or pear or apple, you need to check a pollination chart to see exactly which other cultivars will pollinate it.

I don't think Raintree Nursery ships to Canada, but you can still look at their website and research what varieties are likely to do well in your area. This is berry and fruit tree heaven after all if you pick the right ones. You have to pick ones that will ripen fruit in our short cool summers, and with subtropicals like fig trees you also have to pick for cold tolerance.

Fruit trees need a few years to get going. Cane berries need a couple of years. Blueberries need a few years. If you're a beginner, stick to common easy stuff and avoid the exotics until you know you can grow the easy stuff.

I don't know what your landscaper friend means by 'grafted incorrectly'. If the graft took and the plant is alive and growing, then it was grafted correctly. If the plant is not growing then it may be, as has been mentioned, operator error. Do they bloom? they need to bloom to produce fruit. Do they get pollinated by bees? no pollination, no fruit. Full sun, decent drainage, regular water, all that stuff?

Here is a link that might be useful: Raintree Nursery in Morton, WA

Thanks for the link! I will check it out right now. I should clarify- the jacaranda was an indoor plant and was established as such. It died indoors in relatively ideal conditions. It would have been over in less than a week had it been placed outdoors! :)

"Please note that fruit trees need a specific second cultivar for pollination, not just any ol' cultivar. For each type of fruit, ie cherry or pear or apple, you need to check a pollination chart to see exactly which other cultivars will pollinate it."

This may well be the problem. We did have SOME cherries- just hardly any. We're mulching and have just applied dormant oil based spray. I'm going to try to find out the exact variety of our cherry and pear cultivars, although after all this time it may be hard.

I am going to find out exactly what he thought he was talking about by an improper graft and post it here. I really want to get to the bottom of this. If anyone's interested, I'll probably see him next week and get his information.

Thanks for taking so much time and putting thought into your reply!

I'm new to the forum but thought I'd share. :-) I bought a Sunshine blueberry plant a couple of years ago and got yummy berries the first year without another blueberry plant around. Sunshine is a self pollinator. A lovely bush that keeps most leaves over the winter and will probably top at 3 ft. - so could even be in a container I suppose. It won't do if you're interested in a giant crop but wonderful for a handful at a time for breakfast!

One thing that hasn't been mentioned is bees. We have a number of ancient (over 100 year old) fruit trees and some years they have had very little fruit and we have noticed very few bees for pollination. They maybe flower at a cold time when the bees aren't active and then it gets hot and the flowers die quickly. We have a couple of Mason Bee HIves now and are getting better crops. There are a lot of news items about the decline in the honey bee population due to parasites. It's worrysome.

Bees, yes, I mentioned bees. Fruit requires pollination, and most fruits are bee pollinated. Honeybees don't do well here because it's too cold and wet in spring flowering season for their tastes. Bumblebees do very well, being native and not deterred by cold. Mason bees are also native and are excellent pollinators of the earlier flowering fruit trees. Got to have a live tree producing flowers first, then bees second! then, fruit comes third.

Oh I am so relieved to hear the jacaranda was intended as an indoor plant. You had me very confused there! However: jacarandas will not thrive in a normal house. Most outdoor plants won't. Too dry, too dark. Good houseplants are a very small subset of all tropical plants, and tend to be the ones that can take very dark and dry conditions. I would not take the death of the jacaranda personally - it just doesn't sound like a good idea to try to grow one indoors. You would really need a heated greenhouse, with humidity and temperature and light controls. Indoor heating dries out the air too much (think what it does to your skin after all) and windows don't let in enough light, which we have so little of to start with around here in winter.