Is there a good place to buy Butternut Trees mail-order?

I'm trying to buy my father some butternut trees and after checking garden watchdog there is no one I want (and can) buy them from. He bought a couple last year and they were in the best location possible and still died (they came bear root but were at one time in a pot so the tap root had been cut off) He want some that had good height on them and I can't find anything over 3 feet.

Has anyone had success with getting a couple of large trees (5-6ft+)?
From a decent company (man I hate ordering trees--with tap-roots). He's tired of losing year after year of growth w/ companies that never fill his order or send tiny dead trees.

Have you ordered from Stark's? Last year I had a peach tree that didn't make it.. that I didn't feel was my fault ,and they happily replaced it..

Rhora's nursery in Canada has butternut. I have not purchased from them, but they have a good rating (with only 1 listing, sadly) and I haven't heard anything bad about them on the forums here or elsewhere.

http://www.nuttrees.org/

~Chills

Also, there is Grimo nut nursery (another Canadian nursery)

http://www.grimonut.com/section1.htm#butnut

I just checked on one of my favorite mail-order nurseries as well. www.burntridgenursery.com also has butternut trees. I have ordered from this company and I can personally recommend them (and they are in the US, so there will be no costs for phytosanitary certificates and the shipping will likely be more reasonable).

www.burntridgenursery.com

~Chills (again)

This message was edited Feb 11, 2007 6:52 PM

Starks is where he got the last ones that died, they came in at only 2 ft. and after they died he wants to make up for lost time w/ something bigger and less likely to die (I guess at 62 and aren't strapped for cash you don't want to fool around w/ little bitty trees that die and replacement isn't as important as getting it right the first time.)

Burntridgenursery looks good, I think I'll give them a try.

Thanks so much!

I have had good experiences in the past with Burht Ridge. Might also want to try butternut/heartnut hybrids (buartnut) which they also have. Last I checked they were out of heartnut so I might order a buartnut myself. There's some sort of disease of butternut going around and many of the trees that resist it turn out not to be purely butternut but have some heartnut ancestry...

I talked to them at Burnt Ridge and the trees sound wonderful!! I've ordered and am excited to see what my dad gets, I think he'll be very happy!

Thanks so much everyone!!

With strongly-taprooted species, like walnuts(butternut is in this group), you're frequently better off going with a small 1-2 yr seedling that's small, but will re-establish rapidly than planting a much larger specimen that may 'sit still' for 3 years or more while it gets a root system re-established. Oftentimes, that small seedling will catch up and pass the larger one before it ever gets going again.

Burnt Ridge is good.
Also, Nolin River Nut Tree Nursery, for grafted selections,
or Musser Forests & OIKOS Tree Crops for seed-grown specimens.

gooley is right about the butternutXheartnut selections having (variable) resistance to the butternut canker organism.

Yeah I'm aware of this and that is why we have had so much trouble getting them to live, but frankly we started off with the little stuff (1-2 ft little nothings and they still had too much of the tap root cut off and died).

While it is not easy it is possible to take a big tree and transplant it even if it has a tap root. When my father was 15 years old he dug and transplanted a 20 ft tree for his mother.

While I know I can't mail order a tree that is that big and it isn't easy to dig and transport a tree w/ a large taproot it isn't impossible and it just ticks me off that so many companies purport to sell trees that just aren't going to live b/c they cut off half the taproot just to stick it in a pot or b/c they were too lazy to dig it all up. Even though Stark's will give you another tree for free I think they do that b/c most people (just like with mail in rebates) won't take advantage of it and the people that do it is still more economical to send out crap that is going to die.

My father always told me that anything worth doing is worth doing right, and that is what I give others and what I expect from others. So I'd rather pay a little more and get something that was done right. Just b/c it is more difficult doesn't give them an excuse to send out crap.

(whew that is my little pet peeve ... had to get that off my chest.)

There's nothing magical about a taproot; while it does provide some anchorage in the early years, it's mainly an energy reserve storage vessel - so, it's to your benefit to preserve as much of it as is practicable when digging a taprooted species - but severing it is not a death knell. I've hand-dug and bare-rooted 8 ft pecans/walnuts/oaks, and while I try to come out with at least 16-18 inches of taproot, sometimes I get much less. Most survive the move in spite of it.

Oh yeah you can get lucky and have a tree survive w/ little taproot but I'd much rather prefer to get as much of it as possible.