Comments regarding Raintree Nursery

I have ordered from Raintree for years and have never been disappointed - untill this year. I ordered loganberries and tayberries in the fall hoping to allow for winter root growth and maybe get a few berries this year. The plants they sent were mere twigs. Although planted in compost and well cared for, two were obviously dead in February. I phoned to report this & after paying further shipping I received replacements. These were just as puny as the original plants & were severely root-bound in tiny pots. An email of complaint has been ignored.
Not good value - you can do better elsewhere.

I ordered several fruit trees in 2006 from this company. I was positively surprized at their size health and vigour. I have bought from them again and again and had only very positive experiences. Packaging is very good and plants were never damaged.

I feel guilty, but I have to gloat. My experience with Raintree Nursery has been amazing! Winter 05'/06' I first ordered two dwarf cherry trees (Vandalay & Surefire) and a seedless green table grape (Interlaken), all bareroot. In spring I was surprised by the huge box when it arrived, and then again at the size of the cherry trees. The grape vine was no cutting, it was at least 3+ yrs old! I was so pleased with the size and health of my order, I jumped back online and ordered a Dwarf Saturn Peach tree and an Illinois Everbearing Mulberry. They arrived very quickly, and again I was blown away. The Dwarf Saturn's trunk was 1 1/2"- 2"! All four fruit trees leafed out then branched out, even a few flowers from the cherries. The grape which I am growing in a container, produced three bunches of grapes!!!! Now it is early fall 06', all still flourishing. I can say for a fact, I have ordered a lot of mail-order trees/plants and Raintree Nursery has really impressed me. 5 Stars!
1. Size!
2. Health of bareroot trees.
3. Price.
4. Super web site, tons of information. Very easy order process.
5. Selection.
Just placed another large order for spring 07'.
Till then, Mantis212

4 Stars!

Have ordered several times, both for myself and others, and experience has been excellent.

A few years back, ordered Bing and Ranier Cherries - have been producing gat for a couple years now; Enterprise and Liberty Apples have been excellent, though it took 4 years before decent produce (that was expected). Also picked up a Beauty Plum, and it has been absolutely amazing - the sweetest best plums ever; and the tree has grown beautifully. I can alos speak highly of the Black Gold Cherry, and couple different peaches (don't recall the variety at the moment).

A few disappointments happened along the way - like when none of the blueberries survived a couple months, but Raintree Customer Service was superb, and replaced each plant without question. Additionally, had a problem with a few raspberries, and again received full replacement.

This is an excellent source for your fruit trees!

I ordered two quince trees from Rainwood this past summer. I was hesistant to order trees and wondered how they would survive shipping, but couldn't find quince trees at any of the local nurseries so had little choice.
Both trees arrived bare root and leafless--since it was past the leafing season, I was a bit concerned. However, both trees leafed out quickly and are healthy, thriving plants. One even had a couple of blooms on it, so I look for it to begin bearing fruit in the next year or two.
The few trees that I bought from a local nursery, however, are iffy at best.
I highly recommend raintree. You won't be sorry.

I just had to put in a good word for Raintree! I am a satisfied, repeat customer, and have filled my organic suburban yard with their fruiting stock; I didn't order this year, because my limited space is running out!

I am still astonished at the golden raspberry I ordered last time - a $5 plant, with $20 roots, I swear! It bore lightly it's first season, and more generously this year. One potted thornless blackberry got broken off after planting, and I feared it was dead, but it's taken off this year, as well as it's bare-root neighbors. My red and white currants are prolific, and I was so happy with my first gooseberries that I more recently ordered two more kinds. My pawpaw cultivars are fabulously lush, and hanging with ripening fruit, more than justifying their higher initial cost over locally grown "natives". Other fruit trees are also growing nicely over the years, from well-packed beginnings that probably justify the cost of shipping. My only disappointments have been with ornamentals. The salals did not take to their sunny spot at all, rather than simply growing to smaller mature sizes, and didn't survive later transplanting to a site I thought they might like better, and the Carolina allspice was not fragrant at all, which I later learned is not all that uncommon, you need to smell before you buy ... However, the clove currant lives up to its description, and the bush cherries are highly ornamental in spring! I would not hesitate to do business with them again.

After the advise of my parents and friends I placed my first order with raintree three years ago.I have ordered from Raintree several times and have visited the nursery twice. I have always found the staff to be friendly, knowledgable,and easy to work with. Last fall I ordered two hazelnuts, alba roses, raspberries, and an apple tree. All arrived in excellent condition, well developed, and are thriving. The fall before I ordered vine maples and several other plants. All of my order has thrived with little or no extra care. Point: One of the alba roses was accidently hit with my husband's trimmer , shredding a good portion of the main stalk, and still came back to bloom this summer.

I have always found the staff easy to work with and willling to make replacements or suggest substitutions. They have been a joy to work with.

I have ordered many things from Raintree over the years, probably a dozen or more orders in total. Their fruit trees have always been incredibly healthy and have taken off. Their berries have generally been good quality but not quite as good as the very best berry nurseries (e.g. Norse). I still continue to order berries from them because they are the only good source for several kinds. I have found their horticultural expert very helpful with problems I have had, and the few things that died they were very good about replacing. They need to upgrade their web ordering system to send you a confirmation of exactly what you ordered in an email -- they were one of the early nuseries with a good on-line ordering mechanism, but their system is now behind the times in that regard.

Overall I have had a very positive experience with them, I would put them in my top-3 overall list out of 20+ fruit nurseries I have ordered from.

Scott

We placed a large order for lingonerries, raspberries, etc. with Raintree. Raintree kept changing the date our plants were to be shipped. When they finally arrived, some of them looked terrible. The plants were small and the roots were spindly, curled-up looked rotten. When customer service was contacted, we were told to plant them as they would soon take off. After planting them, the leaves dropped off and most of them died. When customer service was contacted again, we were told that the time to return our plants had passed and nothing would be done. The only remedy came when we contacted the credit card company we had used to purchase the plants. In a three-way conference call to raintree with my visa rep on the line, we again contacted Raintree, the Raintree staff person was very rude, told us that while our money would be refunded, that we'd would not be allowed to ever order from them again--as if we would. Stay away from this place!!

I ordered apple trees and raspberries in 2005. The apple trees were smaller than I was promised in emails asking about the size. The columnar apples only leafed out on the top foot - the rest of the trees were blank sticks. I was told that this was the way they were supposed to be. The dwarf apple trees look like a stick man drawing. They have almost no leaves. Once again, it's me, not their products. That's not the way either of the tree types are pictured in the catalog or on the website. The raspberries arrived in poor condition and died completely within a few weeks. Raspberries in the same location obtained from another source flourished. Of course, I was told to wait until 2006 for a replacement. For a mere $ 12.95 they will ship replacements. Why should I pay shipping charges for defective plants? Customer service has been slow. You'll do much better going to another company.

My negative experience had mostly to do with customer service. After reading positive reviews on this site and getting a recommendation from a colleague, I was excited to order from Raintree. I put in a large order - 4 trees and 9 berry plants. My first problem arose when I received conflicting information about when my order would arrive. I would get different information depending on who I was dealing with. The order ended up arriving quite a bit earlier than expected, so I had to drop everything and really scramble to get everything in the ground.

The plants arrived in good shape for the most part. Everything was packaged well, except for one raspberry plant that had snapped where the stem met the roots. The trees were a good size, but I was a bit disappointed that the trees didn't appear to have been trained much, if at all. Compared to a tree I got from another nursery which was nicely pruned, these branches were all willy-nilly with many weak crotch angles (less than 45 degrees). Also, the root mass seemed a bit skimpy compared with the tree received from this other nursery. Still, everything seems to be growing well so far, and hopefully I can prune and train the branches to a nice shape.

My main problem was that I received an extra tree and was missing one of the berry plants. I called right away to explain about the extra tree, and the woman on the phone was pleasant, said they would refund the price of the extra tree. I later followed up with email when I discovered the broken raspberry and missing berry plant. The person I emailed with was rather curt and unhelpful. She told me that they had filled exactly the order I had sent, and offered no resolution.

Now, while it's certainly possible I made an error in the ordering process, it seemed unlikely as I'm a cautious type and have made many online purchases before with no problem. Unfortunately, I had no way of confirming exactly what happened, because I did not receive a detailed, itemized order confirmation after submitted my order online. I had no idea an error had been made until the box arrived and I saw the mistake on the order slip.

I emailed back to ask for some sort of resolution, and to confirm that I would be receiving a refund for the extra tree I'd been charged for. No response to my email. I waited 2-3 days, then called. The woman I spoke with on the phone said she'd check on it and get back to me. She didn't call back, but I later got a snippy email saying that "since you were already told told you would get a refund" it would be taken care of. The whole exchange left me with a sour feeling, like I was being a "bad customer" and that they thought I was trying to cheat them or something. Having spent a lot of money already, and as a potential lifelong customer, I would have liked to have been given the benefit of the doubt. To top it all off, I still haven't received a refund, 9 days later - neither for the broken raspberry nor for the extra tree.

I'm rather disappointed, as this was my first large mail order from any nursery, and I had high expectations of this one. Hopefully my experience was an anomaly, but I don't think I'll be ordering from them again or recommending them to others.

I made two large shipments this spring. The boxes were carefully packaged but UPS managed to shred one box in half (they wrapped a bit of tape around it like I wouldn't notice) and the second box had been dropped and the stapled top had been forced off with the contents hanging out. To summarize, I planted everything anyway but my female kiwi vine didn't survive so I requested a replacement.

I promptly received a big healthy replacement plant. Actually, they sent another male by mistake but when I contacted them they sent a female as well, so now I am in kiwi heaven.

My plants all look very healthy and happy! I ordered a total of three apple trees, two cherry trees, one rhubarb, 18 raspberries (3 different varieties), 75 strawberries (HUGE & healthy!), 3 mock orange, 2 syringa sensation. (These last ones look kinda small, but are already budding out)

With one exception, the root balls on the trees were much larger than what I expected, and the last was more like what we are used to receiving through the mail. The trees are doing exceptionally well in their temporary but large pots. This way if we get a late cold spell I can just slide them into the garage (or my teenagers can do it).

Communication regarding shipping my order was impecable. I live in Southeast Alaska where spring can come anywhere from early March to mid May. Someone definitely was watching our weather. About the time I was thinking they may ship soon, they showed up!

Ooooh and when pulling out the packing slip, I found a coupon for $10 off my next order. Since this company actually will use USPS for Alaska, you can bet I will be drooling all over this new catalog too.

The plants I received from Raintree are fantastic, in particular their bareroot trees. Although the catalog states they ship 3'-5' trees, all of the 15 trees I received bareroot were 5' and up (and one plum was as tall as i am, 5'7"!) Needless to say, all of my Raintree plants have leafed out and are doing great. I would order again from Raintree without hesitation, and if they ever went out of business it would break my heart!

I have ordered from Raintree for years now and have not been disappointed, ever. Last year I made the mistake of trying to save a few bucks and ordered from another company in Canby, OR. That company's plants were sickly and /or dead and I lost great sums of money on that deal. Raintree, on the other hand, has always worked with me in the very few times there has been a problem, and to my satisfaction. You really do get what you pay for. Plus, their replacement guarentee is appropriate, especially for things that might take a long time to come out of dormancy, and is one of the reasons I will keep coming back. Ordered more unusual friut trees and shrubs this year, many of which were free bonuses based on my order total. Everything is doing well. Had to heel in some of the trees because of the constant rain and some are already beginning to leaf out. So far, all of the bonus plants are doing well also. My only real problem is not enough space to put everything I want to grow!

Ordered two large blueberries and two grapes from them. The blueberries that arrived were huge!!!! and had great root systems. The grapes were good looking canes and were already pruned. Will definitely be ordering from this nursery again.

I ordered 2 blueberries, a gooseberry, and a boysenberry. The blueberries and gooseberry are all quite large and budding out and very healthy looking.

Communication from order to delivery was adequate.

I ordered a minidwarf apple tree, a pomegranate tree, and a black currant plant. They arrived well packed and the roots were still damp (the pomegranate wasn't bare root). Non of the trees sustained any damage in shipping. I am pleased with my order.

last year we ordered rasberries and 2 plum trees. We picked a bunch of delicious berries last fall and they are rapidly increasing. The June bearing plants grew to about 7 ft tall last year. They are very vigorous plants. I looked for the plum varieties we wanted for a long time. ( since I can no longer depend on South Meadow) I will be ordering from them again.

OLDDOG 2/05/06 COLFAX LA.

THE TREES I ORDERED CAME ONE TIME AND LOOK VERY GOOD. THEY WERE PACK WELL AND IN GOOD SHAPE. THE WEATHER HERE IS IN THE MID 60'S AND THE BUDS ARE STARTING TO OPEN!

Purchased Lingonberries (Red Pearl & Ida) last spring. The packaging for a pack of 18 was second-to-none and the plants arrived in outstanding condition. I had a fair amount of berries just a few months after having them in the ground - even a 2nd harvest on the Ida variety! Love the offerings from Raintree and placed another order with them already for 2006!

i have ordered from this company two times...and both were big mistakes! i ordered raspberies and currants as well as salmon berries. i was living in washington state at the time and the plants arrived very dry,the size of shoelaces!, NO ROOTS and looking as if they had been mulched. i called the company and , expecting a nice simple "oh, we will fix this right away"was "treated" instead by a nasty and completely unhelpful employee. i emailed and called and finally they admitted [a year later] that the raspberry plants were infected with a virus. their attitude was "oops...oh well". they never did fix the problem and i was left with money out of my pocket for dead and or infected plants, contaminated soil...and a very bad taste in my mouth.
NEVER BUY FROM THIS COMPANY....it's just not worth it to have your soil contaminated.

I've ordered a lot from them and am happy. One thing that sticks out is that their fruit trees (at least the two I received) were 3 year old size actual trees verses the 1 year whips you see at hardware stores (which justifies them being a bit more expensive). One of my trees was a cherry, which I understand can be tricky, but it took off and grew like a weed the first summer (I even had a few cherries the first year). :)

I am a fairly new gardener, especially in this location. My garden is organic - I dont use pesticides or chemical fertilizers. I have ordered from Raintree on two occasions, and went to Raintree once as well (about a 3 hour drive from my town).

in 2004, I ordered 3 grapes: Canadice, Interlaken, and Price. I chose these due to research that I had done about what grapes would do well in this climate. Despite only being about 1 foot tall when received, last year all had grown to over 8 feet tall. This year, I have about 20 bunches from Canadice, 10 bunches from Interlaken, and one grape on Price. They exten over the top of the 10 foot tall arbor that I buuilt for them over a deck. I didnt expect any grapes the second year already, but they are doing much better than my expectations.

The free Summit raspberry bore many berries last year and this year. I would not have bought a raspberry, but now it is one of my favorites.

in 2005, I ordered 2 gooseberries (collossal and Hinnonmaki yellow) and one grape (Venus), and on my trip there, bought another (Black velvet) as well as some dwarf apples. The grape did the same as the others the year before - it's now about 6 feet tall. The gooseberries have grown well. No berries this year but I dont expect them already. Also, a currrant bush. It is growing well, about 1 foot of growth on each of 3 new branches.

The items bought there in person were larger, but I was happy about the quality of the shipped plants and packing. One grape plant was broken and the free raspberry was broken as well, but neither seemed affected by that and they grew very well. I pruned off the broken parts on receipt.

I think that the cost is probably more than some other sources, but they are the only source that I could find for some of the varieties that I bought. Their growing information is very helpful. The item descriptions were very helpful.

I am sure that I will order some more from Raintree for 2006, although I dont know where they will be planted yet.

Last year I oredered 12 red raspberry plants and they all died. I did get replacements for those plants after waiting for a long time and experiencing several run around phone-calls, but here we are in the last of July and, none of those plants have made it. I'm disgusted and want my money back. They can't use that excuse that I ordered them out of zone, because I didn't. Also, I had my soil tested and don't have nematodes. That excuse is stupid.

I have had bad experiences with on-line nurserys, but I was pleasantly surprised by Raintree. Shipping was on the expensive side, but the quality and condition of the trees I ordered was top notch. They were well packed in a large tube with the roots in damp mulch--given the packageing I can live with the shipping charges. I will order from them again!

I have dealt with these folks for years they are GREAT...NEVER any problems all good healthy and quality product. Two words of caution ..stay away from bamboo you'll be sorry... also NEVER buy an Illinois mulberry take my word for it DON'T DO IT email me if you want to know more myersphcf@aol.com

I was very pleasantly surprised at the size and health of the Black Velvet Gooseberries I ordered from Raintree!

Big, beautiful, healthy plants (and I got them on sale-to boot!) that showed no sign of shipping stress. Just in the few weeks they've been planted they are showing remarkable growth-I can't wait until next year when they might actually produce!

Nice job of packaging/wrapping to ensure safe, healthy and LIVE arrival. Unlike others-I didn't find their shipping charges to be at all exorbidant or high--actually pretty reasonable compared to some I've encountered!

I've already got two more gooseberry varieties and an apricot planned for next years order (and if I wasn't completely happy with my order-I would not be ordering again! Life (and summers here in Minnesota) is too short to waste on unhealthy, sickly, unhappy plants!.

I can't wait to order again from Raintree in 2006!

I waited to post my review until I was sure how the plants I ordered would fare. I ordered 4 bareroot winterberry hollies, 3 serviceberries, 3 carolina allspice and a paperbark maple from Raintree. All the plants have leafed out now and look like winners. Raintree included an extra holly and an extra maple (woohoo!). I was pleased with the quality of service and plants. The shipping was definitely expensive, and because of that, I will probably order from companies with the same products that are on the eastern side of the US. But I have nothing negative to say about my Raintree experience; it was great!

I had a very positive experience with Raintree Nursery.
My first order, last spring was three fruit trees and a filbert hedge (5 shrubs).
The trees were good sized, well branched and had a good growth in a year and I will get some fruits this summer.
Two of the filberts died and they sent me replacement this year with my second order, cranberry bush, aronia, goumis and huckleberry.
They are all doing well
The bonus plants are great, the strawberries are full of fruits after 6 weeks , strong and healthy.
They tell you when your order is shipped , they are nice on the phone and the packaging is well done.
I love them and cant' wait to order something else next spring!

Just received my 1st order from Raintree for 3 apple trees & rhubarb; all of which were healthy & in wonderful condition. I was so pleased that I've already placed another order for additional apple trees, blueberries, lilacs, etc. Also, the free raspberries included in my first order were some of the best bare root canes I've ever received from a company. Overall, I'm exceedingly satisfied!!

After browsing Raintree's catalog, I decided my first purchase needed to be another 10 acres of land so I could plant everything my mouth was watering for.

Instead, I ordered a real tea plant (Camellia sinensis) and a real olive tree, both impossible to find in Portland OR area nurseries. I also added a black locust tree, for sentimental reasons.

What a thrill when the package arrived this March! I could not believe how big and bushy and well-established the tea and olive were. Let alone that they were packed so well that they came through with no damage at all. Both in 1-gallon pots, both fully leafed out, both 3 feet tall plus, with many leafy side branches.

Raintree also sent detailed instructions for harvesting and preparing both green tea and black tea, and I've made the green tea three times already, the bush was that big and has done so well in just a few short months. Boy, I used to think it was a thrill to eat an apple off my own trees; wait'll you serve tea to your friends from your own bush! Too cool. And tasty too.

The dormant bareroot black locust, the afterthought on my order, is leafed out and growing great. Now all I need are some red-headed woodpeckers, which I used to see foraging for the insects drawn to those honey-sweet blossoms....

My order consisted of a Peter's Honey fig, 5 chestnut and 2 black walnut—along with a few "bonus" raspberry bushes. The raspberries were beautiful, large well-rooted plants. The chestnut and walnut, were nice until you looked at the "bare root" part. What roots? They appeared to have been chopped out of the ground and most of the roots stripped off. Three of the chesnuts and one walnut did leaf out, but will require several years of major TLC to survive. The fig was worse. It was the thickness of a Cross pen, dry, brittle, and the bark at root-level had rotted off. It was obviously dead. After almost forty years of gardening I can nurse just about anything back to life—except the already dead. Tina, at Raintree, seemed insulted that I mentioned the fig was dead at shipment (quality control problem?), but did offer a credit or replacement it "next season". I'm interested in seeing what I'm sent and will post the results.

I ordered many plants from them this Spring to start an orchard and fruit area. One grape did not leaf out and one branch on a multi-variety pear tree did not leaf out. I e-mailed asking if this should be a concern. They promptly said that both should have leafed out and are sending me replacements.

All the other plants (about fifteen) are doing beautifully.

This company is great! I placed an order for a dwarf self-fertile sweet cherry(not easy to find one for my zone!), 2 root stocks, 2 musk strawberries, and a blueberry bush.

All of them arrived well packaged and super healthy. I planted the fruits and tree this past weekend and they are all settling in nicely.

I was so pleased with the quality of the plants I recieved that I ordered two apples and a fruiting shrub that my local greenhouses do not carry.

Do not hesitate to buy from Raintree!

I ordered gooseberry bushes for wholesale price. It came up as a good price for 1 bush, but their shipping is really expensive. If i could find gooseberries in the local nursery i would rather buy there. Anyway gooseberries arrived well packed with no visible damage. I planted them the same day and they've already leafed out. In the near future i probably will order some other plants but only for wholesale or clearance price because of expensive shipping rates. I live in California. It's only 2 states down.

In March 2005 I ordered a Persimmon tree and a Pawpaw tree.The first thing I noticed was the excellent packaging.The two trees came in a triangular almost 5 foot long strong cardboard box and they were taped inside very securely.The trees were of very good quality and started growing in my yard within 10 days despite the fact that the persimmon came out of cold storage.
I called the company about a suitable pollinizer for the persimmon variety and they were very knowledgeable and forthcoming.The prices seem to be high at first,but considering the careful packaging and good quality of the trees,are actually a good deal,especially since the local nurseries around here charge about the same prices and I still have to drive there and mess up the car.
They also have a large selection of hard to find fruit trees.

I ordered 15 different apple and crab apple trees in Dec of 04 on their internet site. Everything arrived the day they informed me it would, and the packaging was excellent. All the trees were 4-6 feet tall with large root systems packed in damp paper and wrapped in plastic. I planted them the day after they arrived and they started to leaf out almost immediately. I also received several roses, dogwoods, and maples free due to an internet promotion and these I expected to be rather small, but they were almost as big as the apples. They also included a fairly detailed manual of planting and care instructions.

I ordered fruit trees and was not disappointed. Each was very well rooted and strong and well branched. Excellent packing and selection is the best.