http://forums.gardenweb.com/discussions/1915674/go-to-jail-willis-orchards-for-sale

This is what I'm talking about, the original poster of this thread has posted the same comment in several different message boards. Just click on his profile and you'll see what I mean.

I have ordered from them several times but pretty much stopped doing business with them after I got to know better. You can order all types of apples and peaches and mayhaws and other things, and there are no graft lines, not to mention their mayhaws have a huge amount of thorns on them that mostly go away over time, which means they're seedlings, not named cultivars. If these were rooted cuttings, they'd be from a mature tree, with mature limbs, which would have less thorns. When you order loquats from them, you also get seedlings. There are ongoing debates about whether or not loquats come true from seed. So, some people may give them a pass. Several years later, I have yet to have any of their apples or mayhaws come into maturity. I've also ordered southern bunch grapes from them, and despite ordering several varieties, the ones that did produce fruit were mostly the same grape variety.

Willis Orchards have also been associated with Tyty, which has about 100 different names and is famously known for sending the wrong plants to people. My personal experiences with tyty nursery was short, as I called them to place an order, and they kept telling me this plant and that plant was out of stock, and before I could tell them the rest of the order, they hung up on me, and I have not ever tried to order from them again. Willis claims to be an ex employee of Tyty, but who really knows?

Thanks, that's what I need to know. Anyone have any good sources for some low cost low chill apples, or grapes that can live here in Florida?

Plantmegreen has anna, dorsett golden, and ein shemer apples. They also sell triumph muscadine grapes and southern home muscadine hybrids. Isons also sells a few apple varieties and a lot of muscadine varieties. One of the local feed stores uses Isons for much of their plant stock. Chestnut Hill Farm may have some stuff too, but they seem to send their best stock out wholesale, mostly outside of Florida, and when you get something from them direct, you pay a whole lot of money for a tiny plant.

Just Fruits and Exotics in Crawfordville is another source:

http://www.justfruitsandexotics.com/JFE/

Thanks so much. I'm making notes on what to get right now!

Hi Alan

I have not any experience with Willis nursery so I cannot comment on that.

I was happy with the purchase of most of my fruit trees and if I took them out it was for different reasons other than the health of the tree. For example the apples just don't do well in my area....

I bought my fruit trees from different sources, Excalibur, Just Fruits, Laurel nursery, Plantogram, Lukas, different vendors at Leu Gardens sale and Tampa sale, My Kids nursery, Echo, Fairchild gardens and probably others that I forgot already....

I highly recommend Bluestar nursery in Hawthorne, best prices and healthy trees, I don't think they do mail order and probably closed for the season. You will have to contact them.

What kind of fruits are you interested? maybe then you can get more reviews from gardeners...

Silvia

What fruit am I not interested in might be a shorter list. Pretty much anything but citrus, unless anyone knows of some greening resistant trees. My list of things I'm looking for currently is, low chill apples, persimmons, pears grapes, blackberries, soft seeded pomegranate, and a low chill peach.

Check out local flea markets in your area. Many times, small nursery owners or re-sellers set up booths or outside tents full of trees. I often see fuyu and tanenashi persimmons and various other pomegranates, pears, blueberries, peaches, pineapple guavas, etc.

As far as I can tell, there are no citrus greening resistant varieties out there. The university of Florida are doing trials to create varieties that would fruit longer than the non-resistant varieties before going into decline, but it could be many years before you see them at nurseries or garden centers. Considering how long the 'Tropic Sweet' apple has been around, it's still about impossible to find it anywhere in Florida besides Just Fruits and Exotics. Chestnut Hill Farms lists it as something they have, but I've been trying to get one for at least two years, and they keep telling me to call them back in a few months, and then a few months come around, and they say it again, and finally, they told me that they just don't have them and don't know if or when they'll get them again. I've not ever seen it at a local Lowes or Home Depot. I actually inquired about it at Blue Star Nursery as well, and they told me the tropic sweet apple didn't do well in Florida, that it had a lot of disease issues. This goes against what the UF says, but it's a patented variety, and every time it's propagated, someone has to give a royalty to the UF. That's probably the bigger issue here, nurseries just not wanting to pay that fee.

So, what type of pears are you wanting to grow? Asian pears, soft pears, or hard pears? I consider the Baldwin pear the best growing in my yard so far, but not all of my pear varieties have fruited. Baldwin is a soft variety, similar to Bosc. You pick it hard, let it ripen off of the tree for a week or so, and you'll know when it's ready by how much give it has. It took something like 6 or 8 years in the ground to fruit for the first time. Hard pears are good for pies, pear butters, and canning. Really, I don't think there are many better pies out there than a home made sand pear pie. It's not that soft pears would make bad pies, but there is sort of a mindset that sand pears are trash pears. Many people who buy or inherit homes often have these old sand pear trees on their properties. Each year, they produce a lot of fruit, and they mostly rot on the ground. Many people eventually cut the trees down. It is a shame.

I'm looking at Baldwin, pineapple, and hood pears. Do you know how well Anna and Dorsett gold apples do here? It seems like we should get enough chill hours, but do they get disease problems?

I live in the border of swampland. So, our soil is different than a lot of Florida. It's very acidic swamp muck and floods a lot. Anna is always infested with aphids here. It is not a pretty sight. I haven't noticed the same problems with Ein Shemer yet, but my last one died from my dogs running around the yard and cracking the trunk, and just last year, I planted another one. The dorsett golden also couldn't handle the flooding and got some other type of disease. So, I moved it and pruned off the diseased area after a few years of it just kind of being alive but not doing anything. We'll see how it goes.

About 35 years ago, my father actually had Anna and Dorsett apples that he eventually cut down due to the disease issues. They were in the same general area, with the same soil type, but on a little higher ground. They did produce a lot of apples each year though. I remember on one occasion, my grandmother picked a bunch of the fallen apples and made some fried pies with them, and they were good. They're not really that great fresh though. Anna apples have a very short window when they're OK to eat fresh. Anything before or after the perfect ripeness, they're not good.

I personally wouldn't recommend apple trees, unless you just have the extra space to waste. What area are you in, in Florida? Maybe we could come up with some tried and true things for you to consider.

Just north of Tampa, right outside the city limits, in zone 9 b

I am a little north and inland of Tampa. I do not have any deciduous fruit trees myself, but the best 'local, small orchard' apples we find at the Marion Market tend to be Fuiji apples, which are supposedly quite low-chill. As I learned up north when researching why my brother-in-law's lone apple tree never produced fruit, apple trees need a cross pollinator to set fruit and if the cross pollinator is another variety, the better the fruit yield. Due to our weather it can be hard finding another variety that matches the Fuji for chill hours (though there could be one or two, I really haven't looked too much into this). An alternative, as I have also learned, is to use a crabapple tree as the cross pollinator. Crabapples are in the same genus and so are compatible. The famous Granny Smith comes from Australia and some believe that one of the parent plants that produced that tree was a crabapple. Though, considering it was an accidental find, who really knows? Anyways, good luck on your fruit tree venture. I personally live in an area where it just doesn't get cold enough for most temperate fruits, but gets too cold for most tropical fruit trees. Still, I am learning there are some exotic subtropic fruits that will supposedly do quite well here. They are just hard to find in our neck of the world.

Thanks everyone, its so nice to get some tips from people who have been here longer. I really appreciate it :-)