My bro in law in a landscape architect and recommended Mineta in Gardena.

That would be Moneta

I bought a banana tree at Moneta, and they told me it would make fruit, but it never even made flowers. I do not trust their labels.

I had better success at the San Gabriel Nursery - not on the West Side, but worth the trip. I bought a Cherimoya tree there that has made fruit every year.

Home Depot in Marina Del Rey occasionally has a good supply of fruit trees. I bought a Manila Mango tree that made very good fruit.

You can also order from Monrovia Nursery and have the item shipped for free to your favorite nursery for pick up, or they might deliver to your house.

Moneta is a retail nursery and as such they don't make any of the labels on the fruit trees. They are most likely coming from either Durlings or La Verne Nursery which are huge wholesale operations that supply pretty much every retail nursery in the Southland with fruit trees. Moneta has thr same problems that most of the retail nurseies have and that's holding trees too long in pots until they get horribly potbound. San Gabriel Nursery is very good as most of their business is wholesale. However, I think that they get their fruit trees as bands from LaVerne, iirc.

Also, it is a fools errand to trust labels on plants in SoCal. We have far too many microclimates to even bother with it and they are generally horrible across the board. You have to use authoritative resources like Bob Perry's 'Landscape Plants for California', and even that can be a little off.

Paradise Nursery has a pretty good selelction of fruit trees that are different than the usual varieties.

At this time of year, many nurseries take orders for fruit trees. Armstrong and others get trees from Dave Wilson nurseries. The Dave Wilson website has a list of where you can buy their trees. Check for the suitability of the tree for your zone. You will probably need a low chill variety if you're looking for stone fruit or pomes where you are.

A good nsy near LA is San Gabriel nsy on San Gabriel Blvd. They get a large bareroot selection every year. There is a fruit tree expert on Tustin ave at 17th street off the 55 fwy. That nursery is Laguna Hills. For sure you will get the best tree for your area if you buy from him. It's small but focuses on fruits for the So CA areas. He's also an expert on So CA soils so going there is always worthwhile.

I bought some exotic fruit trees atMimosa Nursery in East L.A., and they were very good but a bit pricey. They have trees that I could not find anywhere else.

Laguna Hills on Tustin Ave in Santa Ana has a bunch.

The trees at Laguna Hills Nursery come from Dave Wilson Nurseries. Most of the small nurseries mentioned here do not grow their own trees, but order from a few large suppliers, such as Dave Wilson and Four Winds Growers, so you might as well go to the nursery closest to your home once you decide which variety you want. Most take orders. You can check the chill hours for your area and proceed from there. If your on the west side, the chill hours will probably be low, so choose trees that require around 200 or fewer chill hours.

Chill hours

Thank you everyone! Lots of great info/places/options.

I find that Green Thumb Nursery has a very wide range of citru (more than Armstrong). Worth driving 30 miles for to me. You can't find every citrus variety at Home Depot.

I second the recommendation for Green Thumb in Canoga Park or West Hills and their other store, Green Arrow, in North HIlls. They carry better distributors such as Dave Wilson Nurseries trees but at about 50-60% of the cost for the same tree at Armstrong. They are also bigger, with more stock. I love these guys.

Be careful when selecting deciduous fruit trees at ALL Socal nurseries. All nurseries will make trees available that really won't fruit here. In SoCal you require "VERY LOW CHILL" trees -- there are not enough chilly hours in the dormant season to make most trees fruit. So a "low chill" tree that requires 500 or 400 hours is still too high of a requirement. I'm in Northeast L.A where I get 80 to 300 hours of chill per year, so all of the trees that require more than 250 hours will seldom fruit -- only some years. Read those labels!

Some varieties of apricot can set fruit in Los Angeles despite the lack of chill. 'Blenheim' may not be the most productive, but you can get some fruit most years. 'Gold Kist' can set a lot of fruit, but the fruits are a little smaller and not quite as flavorful. Fruiting quince, although most people may not be familiar with this fruit, also does well.

It isn't so much the retail nursery you buy from as where they source it, as few retailers grow their own trees. Our nursery buys fruit trees primarily from Durling's in Fallbrook, we've been happy with what they send us and our customers.

So sad that Green Arrow closed. I believe that was the only place in the central Los Angeles area that sold bare root fruit trees every year. Please let me know if anyone knows of any place that does, in LA County... thanks!