We opened our website to tree orders on November 25 (Black Friday). By Saturday one third of all our trees had been reserved. We are now down to only around 150 trees not spoken for. We do have a waiting list started if you really need trees from our farm, but you do have other good choices.
We are in the process of turning over our nursery business to Canopy Farm Management (canopyfm.com/nursery/ ). Canopy has been purchasing our seed nuts and seed from other excellent sources. They are utilizing our good tree growing practices and developing some of their own. As we have reduced our selection, they are expanding. They also offer bare-rooted trees for shipping. Be sure to check them out.
Tom has also started a consultation service to help with your tree planting plans.
Here are a few things to keep in mind when ordering trees from us:
We Do Not Ship Trees. You will not be refunded in full if you expect shipping of any trees. All trees ordered will need to be picked from our farm in southeast Iowa by August 31 (June 30 for small potted chestnuts, see below).
We offer limited Quantity Discounts on Chestnuts. We offer quantity discounts when you order the same variety of chestnuts. You cannot combine orders of different varieties to reach a discount price. Example 60 Mossbarger and 60 Qing would cost you the 10 – 99 price for each, not the 100 or more price for each.
We Do NOT refund your deposit after January 15. We require a 25% deposit to reserve your trees. You have two weeks after placing your order to get this deposit to our farm. This deposit is lost if you cancel your order after January 15. We understand stuff happens. If you need to cancel your order after January 15, call or email us and explain. If we can find a new purchaser for your trees, we may only charge a 10% restocking fee. The earlier you cancel or change the order, the easier it is for us to find new customers and the less we will charge you for changing your order.
Chestnut Seedlings. We have seedlings of some of the very best cultivars available. Although “open pollinated”, their most likely pollinizers are other good Chinese cultivars. This greatly increases the likelihood that the seedlings will be as good or even better than their parents. We fully expect that many new, superior cultivars will result form these seedlings.
The varieties we have for sell below have brief descriptions of the parent trees. These seedling trees are for pick up early summer through August 31.
Chestnut Seedling Pots. We check each tree to make sure we see roots emerging from the bottom of their pot to ensure good root development before we release the tree from our nursery. All are trees are grown in post designed to avoid root spiraling so none of our trees become “root bound”.
Small potted chestnuts – These pots are 9 inches tall for excellent root development, but are only 2 7/8 x 2 7/8 inches square at the top. This allows the roots to fill in the smaller pots sooner and thus the trees will be ready to leave our nursery earlier in the summer. It also means the pots will dry out quicker and the tops can quickly out grow the capacity of the pots. The chestnut trees grown in these smaller pots will need to be picked up from our nursery by June 31.
Medium potted chestnuts – These are our standard size pots. They are 4 x 4 inches square at the top and 9 inches tall. It takes longer for the tree roots to fill these pots. Because of the larger size, these potted trees do not dehydrate as quickly as the smaller pots. Trees grown in these pots do not need to be picked up from our nursery until August 31.
Pawpaw seedlings. We no longer sell grafted or bare-root pawpaws. Because of the life cycle of the pawpaw, you will get more fruit from your pawpaw PATCH by growing superior seedlings and allowing their root sprouts to fruit (see Pawpaw Special Instructions). We offer three sizes of pawpaw that are based on the pot size and thus root development. We also offer two strains of pawpaw. Shensus Pawpaw Seedlings are from a semi-controlled cross of Shenandoah and Susquehanna. Varietal Pawpaw Seedlings are seedlings are open pollinated with grafted varieties such as ‘NC1’, ‘Pennsylvania Golden’, ‘Taytwo’, ‘Prolific’, ‘Shenandoah’, ‘Susquehanna’ and ‘Overlease’ as their mother tree.
