Comments regarding Burnt Ridge Nursery

I ordered 3 fig trees, one cherry tree and one tea camellia. All came on time and were well packed and in good condition when they arrived. They were of course a little pale because of being in a box for a few days, but after I unpacked them and put them in a spot that gets mostly shade, they greened right up. Today they are ready to be moved into the sun. They are all very healthy, completely out of dormancy, and one of the fig trees even has figs on it - something I didn't expect because I ordered pretty much the smallest tree sizes that they offer.

I am very impressed with the quality of the trees, the price - especially for the size, and the unusual varieties that they offer. I would definitely order from them again - if I had a bigger yard. :)

I placed an order with Burnt Ridge nursery for some big berry blueberry bush varieties (Darrow, Aurora and Toro). Most mail order nurseries carried some but not all the varieties that I wanted. Burnt Ridge had a good berry selection so I ordered from them. They shipped cross country from Oregon to Massachusetts in 7 days. I had concerns about the condition and quality of the plants on delivery.. They arrived alive, good sized plants and in good health. I can recommend Burnt Ridge to others and will definitely consider purchasing from them again.

I ordered 6 mix fruit plant last year and I am living in zone 5 and I have checked before order in their site for zone.

3 of them died this year and I called them they said they don't give any warranty like Home Depot or Laws. So whoever ordering from them, take your own risk as they really don't give any warranty.

The worst part is, I have called them for the issue and the first person does not feel any bad that my 3 plant died which was over $40. He even did not say I am sorry for that the plan died. What kind of customer service is that ? The next person whom I have talked was nice and explain me nice.

I placed my first order in Jan 14. It was a large order for 20 fruit trees and some nut bushes. I was very happy with the wide variety of fruit trees I couldn't find anywhere else, with the service and the prices so much that I made a second order or additional nut bushes. The fruit trees are not the largest but I'm satisfied considering I could not find them anywhere else. I am very happy with the order and will continue to do business with them.

I placed my first order with Burnt Ridge this spring, and so far all of my plants are doing well. Initially one of the salmonberries seemed dead, as the other 2 immediately sprang to life but 2 months later it seems it might finally be emerging from dormancy. I was really happy with the low prices on the several of the items I ordered, and the rest were a good size for the price charged. They turned my order around in under a week, which so far is the fastest shipping I've had from any of the online nurseries I've done business with. My only complaint was the aronias were a little small, they should list them by size and not age - if I had known I might have paid more for a larger bush. I'll definitely be picking up a few more items, although I'll probably have to wait until next winter/spring since its probably a bit too warm to be dealing with bareroot plants.

I ordered from Burnt Ridge primarily because they offered some unusual fruit trees at a reasonable price. I'm glad I did. I was very impressed with the trees they sent to me. I have ordered from a number of reputable mail order nurseries, and I've generally been pleased with my experiences, but the quality of the trees sent by Burnt Ridge surpass anything I've gotten elsewhere. The root systems were very developed, with lots of fine roots remaining intact, and the trees themselves were strong and well pruned. Everything was packed well for shipping and the plants arrived hydrated but not moldy and in great condition for planting. I will definitely order from Burnt Ridge again.

This is my first review of the year for 2014 and I am happy to say my experience with Burnt Ridge Nursery has been extremely positive. I ordered a grafted Venus Dogwood tree and a 1 year grafted Pacific Dogwood tree (which was really an afterthought). I ordered the Venus Dogwood tree from another online nursery as well, which I will review independently of this review. The Venus Dogwood was well packaged, healthy root system, about 4.5 ft. tall and had already broken dormancy/starting to leaf out. I have planted the tree and it has made tremendous progress in a short time. I have no worries that this tree is going to thrive and grow into a real beauty! The other dogwood tree is still dormant and I am a little concerned for its fate but it is still too early to contact the nursery for a replacement or a refund. Overall I am pleased with my purchase and highly recommend this online nursery. Thank you Burnt Ridge Nursery!

I've had mixed experience with this company. Some of the plants i ordered survived and are doing well while quite a few did not survive the first season. That's quite a bit worse than my average experience of buying plants online. Overall, I will try to stay away from this nursery unless they have something nobody else has. Then I may give them another chance.

The blueberry bushes were extremely well packed, shipped very quickly, and best of all, they were very much bigger than I expected and of top quality. I will definitely purchase my plants from them.

Positives:
-Best bang for your buck: In general: comparatively cheaper plants.
-Their bushes/small plants have been generally the best I have bought size wise (but I have gotten a couple of rootless runts along the way).
-18% shipping compares favorably to most places and Burnt Ridge is forgiving with smaller plants.
-Cordial Customer Service.
-Basic, not flashy website: It's not much to look at, but I like that all of the varieties are listed and described on one page: I don't have to click on each plant to get info. The site is updated frequently also.
-Some unusual varieties I haven't seen elsewhere.

Negatives:
-Plant quality is a little hit or miss, especially with the trees: I have gotten a couple of trees that I would call 'Half-Whips': It's going to be a LONG time before I can even hope to get fruit from them: I would guess AT LEAST five years.
-My first shipment arrived beat up from the feet up. Two of the puny trees were snapped in two and the larger trees had multiple branches snapped in half. They all survived: but it makes their path to fruit bearing that much longer.
-Refund/replacement policy is below average: They'll replace some plants, but find excuses not to replace other ones.

Overall:
-If you want to buy a lot of plants and try to save a few bucks I would recommend Burnt Ridge (including trees if you are willing to be patient); if you have but a few plants to buy and you want to make sure you get a quality product with a solid guarantee I would recommend shopping elsewhere.
-I would use Burnt Ridge more for bushes/small plants than for trees: I have gotten a couple of nice trees, but I have gotten more runts.
-Cheap in a good way and Cheap in a bad way.

Was a little hesitant to order from this company due to some of the previous reviews, but placed an order due to the variety of harder to find plants they had. Placed an order for Seaberries, blueberries, hardy kiwi and goji, When I placed initial order in the late fall, they were just getting website updated, and they ended up not having one plant in stock I ordered, but let me know and adjusted order without problem. They were slow to respond when emailed, but very cordial and friendly on the phone when called. I was nervous until plants all arrived, when they said they would, healthy and all were larger than I expected, very healthy and doing well. Shipping costs were reasonable, and all the above arrived in dirt in pots, no bare roots.. I would order from them again.

Ive ordered from this company three times and was pleased with each order.

For their prices, the plants are good sized and had very nice root systems. Each plant in each order was labeled and securely packaged. Out of a total of 40-50 plants ordered, only one plant had lost a single leaf during shipping

This was my first order from Burnt Ridge and I was very pleased. To be honest I wasn't expecting too much from their plants due to the low prices listed. I was expecting very small plants, however this was not the case.

I ordered 1 Goumi berry, 4 Gooseberries, 2 apple rootstock, 1 Lingonberry, and one Goji berry.

I will say the two Amish Red Gooseberries were smaller than the other plants I received, but after you consider that these Gooseberries cost only $8.50 each, that seems fair enough. All the other plants arrived healthy and well packaged.

Over all, the plants from Burnt Ridge were just as good to better than the plants that I ordered from Raintree... and for half the price!

So after initially being skeptical of Burnt Ridge's very affordable pricing, I am now a believer, and I will definitely order from Burnt Ridge in the future.

Posted on May 19, 2012, updated May 18, 2013
I ordered a great wall asian persimmon tree.
It arrived well packed with the bare roots in a plastic bag with moist newspaper - after a week of ground shipping across the country. The tree has a very well developed thick trunk, was almost 5 ft tall and good root system.
Looking at it I would think it was a Stark bros fruit tree which is high praise from me.

I ordered some fruit & nut trees from them in the spring of 2013. This is the second time I have ordered from this company. Both times the plants have arrived healthy, and packed very well. They have a nice variety of hard to find plants and I would definitely order from them again.

Most of my burnt ridge stuff was great. Blue Damson plum was almost an inch on the caliper and put out some blooms within a few days of being in the ground. Van cherry, Montrose Apricot and Mulberry were all good. Montmorency was a little small. The Stanley plum I got had been chewed on by deer and has no branches. Showing no signs of growth yet although the others all are. They're sold out of the Stanley now so I'm really hoping it makes it. Also, they had my grape labeled as a blackberry and blackberry as grape.

Communication was outstanding. Allowed me to change my order and were always prompt and polite when answering questions.

Their packaging was impecable. They shipped my stuff on a friday (no idea why they would do that) and it didn't arrive til the following Wednesday but everything was still very moist and all but one were dormant. I would definitely order from them again in the future. Prices can't be beat and I was very happy with what arrived.

Purchased a fairly large order recently and everything was really great except for a broken Illinois everbearing mulberry tree. I took 4 pictures of the damage. Due to it having only an inch of scion left with no active buds on it after cutting off the broken stem I asked for a refund in which I sent the pictures as well. Within 2 days they refunded the tree, apologized, thanked for the pictures and even gave a few tips and hopeful statements that it may still grow. Thanks Burnt ridge. Will definitely use you again.

Ordered red free and jonafree apples on M7 rootstock and a Hana fuyu persimmon. Unfortunately red free was out if stock. The company communicated with me well and I was exceptionally impressed with the size of the apple and persimmon. Bother were 3/4" or better caliper and very healthy. I will see how they perform this season as I just planted them last week. Shipping was prompt.

Found these guys on the internet. Ordered 2 years ago and again last winter. Plants always arrive in excellent shape (Dawn Redwoods, weeping mulberry, maple, sourwood, etc.) Potted up some, planted some in the ground immediately... ALL plants did well. I'm convinced, from reading the negative reviews, that some customers are rookie gardeners spewing sour grapes due to their own incompetence. BR's plants will grow if you know what you are doing. cornclan in the Midwest.

Posted on May 2, 2011, updated December 13, 2012
Posted on April 5, 2011, updated May 2, 2011
I just received 4 apple trees and 6 grape vines today. The apple trees are all decent sized and look like the buds will pop open in a couple weeks. I ordered 3 types of grapes... the himrod and canadice grapes had very good rootstocks. The foch grape vines were quite a bit smaller. Everything was well packed and I expect that everything should do well. I don't have a lot of grape experience yet so it will be interesing to see how well the foch grapes do. I was a bit worried about their size so I potted them inside to jumpstart them before they go outside. For the prices, I'm very happy.

Posted on November 20, 2012, updated November 30, 2012
I have not yet received my plants, so this review is based solely on customer service. Before placing my order, I spoke with BR a couple of times with general questions. The phone was answered quickly each time. I believe I spoke with Karissa who was extremely friendly and answered my questions. For those questions that she couldn't answer, she promised to get the answer.

I placed my order last week. I received a voice message and an email stating that most of my order could be shipped now, and the remainder in March. I've spoken with BR a couple of times and corresponded through email to get the details straightened out. Again, I spoke with Karissa, and, I think, Carolyn. Both have been extremely friendly and helpful.

Customer service and communication have been excellent. I've spoken with several online nurseries, and BR has been one of the best.

Now, I should receive my first order in the next week or so. So, my review of the plants will be forthcoming. I can only hope that the plants are as half as good as the customer service. I'll post an update in the next week or two.

I ordered a half dozen Oregon grapes from this company back in April, as their price on three-year transplants was very good. Their confirmation e-mail stated that the shrubs would ship at some ambiguous date in "May." Lame.

I received the shrubs about 2-3 weeks after placing my order. They were shipped bare-root, wrapped in wet newspaper, in a box that was structurally-sound. The quality of the Oregon grapes was variable: two appeared to be in great shape, three looked OK, and one of them was basically a stick with two leaves. Two of them also had a serious case of "hockey stick roots," and one of these did not do well after planting. The others, however, have exhibited new growth this spring/summer and appear to be doing fine.

Overall, I would do business with Burnt Ridge again under the right circumstances (such as a high-volume order of inexpensive young shrubs). Otherwise, they would probably not be my first choice. Ultimately, you do get what you pay for.

for the price, the trees were small and the grafts were not healed yet ,some of my trees grew, but below the graft .at 18 dollers for a mullbery that i hoped to youse for grafting wood .now i have a nother trash mullbery. my plumb trees were tiny for the cost . the trees i got from adams co. nursery were 3 times the size for less money and all the grafts were well healed over. i was going to buy some more trees of burnt ridge, stuff adans co. dosent have, but `when they didnt want to replace the mulbery tree. I told her to forget my order. they do have the best deal on hazel nut bushes though.good price on seedlings , i would forget any grafted stuff though!!!!

I live near this nursery and buy from them quite often and recommend them to others as well. The plants I purchase on-site or through the mail have been vibrant "happy" plants. I have had no casualities yet and have probably purchased 20 trees/shrubs from them in the past 2 years. I value their knowledge and recommendations as well regarding plant care, etc. They are quite responsive through email and over the phone. They also offer plants at reasonable prices compared to some of the other nurseries online offering edible and northwest native plants.

ordered 8 trees total. 4 paw paw, 2 quince , 2 jujubee. all arrived in good shape . all are growing. trees are about 2-3 feet at best but the price on the trees were low. receptionist was pleasant on the phone and filled an order in time to plant even though I was late in ordering. I plan on buying here again.

Posted on May 10, 2012, updated June 15, 2012
Posted on May 1, 2012, updated May 10, 2012
I ordered three vines at the beginning of the month, one of which was to be a male for my female kiwis. In my order I explicitly said that they needed to be shipped 'ASAP.' Now I get a vague email stating that the plants will be shipped in 'April or May.' From the other reviews I'd read here I'd hoped to be able to rely on them for timely shipping. The flowers on my kiwis look ready to blossom any day now. So I have to choose; gamble on a plant which could come in anywhere from a week to month, or go to one of the more local nurseries for an expensive plant which will be made pointless (assuming the shipped plant will be good quality) when the order eventually arrives. To say that I am frustrated and disappointed is an understatement.

I had an excellent experience with Burnt Ridge Nursery this year. My plants arrived healthy and are doing great. They had explained to me that April through May they are extremely busy and to expect shipping to take longer than it normally would. Also that they had some delays due to delays from one of their providers.

I know this company is a small business staff-wise and I feel they do a great job considering the thousands of orders they get throughout the year along with the hundreds of emails they get weekly.

I've been ordering from them for years and am a very happy customer.

My advice for anyone who wants a better chance at receiving their orders promptly: Place your orders in the late fall or winter before the rush.

I placed a order with Burnt Ridge on 04/28/2012 for 18 Oregon Grapes, 4 Pilgrim Cranberries, 4 Kinnikinnick, 4 Raspberries. I received an email on the 29th and 30th that they will have my order ready and would be shipped in May. I then received this email on May 2nd,

Thank you for your order. Unfortunately, this year we are unable to supply your
4 Kinnickinnicks in the size that you requested. I substituted the next closest
size (Gallon) for $4 each.If this is not ok, please let us know within a week

Then on the 3rd I received this email,

Thank you for your order. Unfortunately, this year we are unable to supply your
4 Kinnikinnicks in the size that you requested. I substituted the next closest
size (Gallon) for $10 each. If this is not ok, please let us know within a week
so that it does not delay the processing of your order. We also have a lovely
website that you can review for alternate choices at //www.burntridgen....
Please make update/changes to your order through email or phone.

So much for a deal on $4 for the gallon plant. It sounded as if my order was ready and they were waiting on me to O.K. the change before they shipped it.

I responded on the 3rd

Hello,

The substitution of the 1 Gal Kinnikinnicks for the 4" size is fine. Any idea on shipping date?

Thank you,

I didn't receive any response so I sent the email again on May 7th.

They responded on May 9th with this,

We got your email concerning your shipment date. Orders are shipped out on a
first come first serve basis. At this time there are a few orders ahead of
yours. Your trees are being kept fully dormant in our coolers and we'll ship it
out as soon as we can.

Funny, I didn't order any trees? I found this to be a generic message send out to anyone who questions shipping. This is when I began to feel a little uneasy about the purchase.

Sad part about it is that these plants are native and very common to Washington State. You would figure that they would have hundreds of them instock and wouldn't have to keep them in a cooler waiting shipment...

Nine business days or 2 weeks went by with no response no plants

So on the 22nd of May I sent them this email,

Hello,

We have decided we would like to cancel our order. We were hoping to get them 2 weeks ago. We are no longer willing to wait for them. If you would confirm our cancellation of our order we are going to put stop payment on our credit card.

Did They respond?
NO!

I resent that email again. adding that its going on 4 weeks of waiting.

Nothing!

So Today May 29th I sent them this email,

Since you haven't responded to our last email 7 days ago, We take it that our order must be cancelled. It's too bad you folks at Burnt Ridge don't have the courtesy to respond to your customers. Your service as gone from A+ when I ordered from your business a few years back to F-. HORRIBLE! It's to bad I used to recommend your company but now I wouldn't recommend you to anyone! VERY SAD!

with that Email I got a response all most instantly

This is a confirmation that your order has been cancelled per your request. We
apologize for you not receiving the email on the 22nd. It accidentally got sent
to the letter print outs I have here by mistake instead of in the form of an
email notification.

If we can help you in the future, please do not hesitate to call.

Sincerely,

Burnt Ridge Staff

Another funny, I didn't receive that letter in the mail that they said they printed out. It sounds like it is still sitting on someone desk.

You may see me as unreasonable about waiting, But I have talked to others and read others posts that have said there service and plant quality has gone down hill. It's to bad because out of 75 plus plants I've ordered from them a few years ago all but the dozen or so I've Culled have thrived.

Maybe you might have better luck if you call them or if your in Washington go to the farmers market and give that a try. I like a paper trail just for this reason that is why I placed the order on line.

Maybe you might be a person that doesn't mind to wait and likes to plant bare root plants in the summer.

What ever the case if you decide to buy from them. I wish you better luck than this experience I had with Burnt Ridge.

Received 1/4 inch whip apple with barely any roots, which replaces a 3/4" Dave Wilson bare root from Bay Laurel that was destroyed by gophers. Both the whip and the 3/4" tree were the same price. Forced to use this nursery as the majority of mail order firms are done for the season. I'm not impressed in the slightest about the quality of their trees.

Ordered apple, cherry and peach scion wood. All scion wood was in great shape and well marked. Would buy from again.

My plants just arrived and they are in great condition. Shipping was very fast! The tea plants are much larger than I was expecting and the wintergreen ground cover has a couple plump berries already. The prices are very reasonable to for the quality that you receive.

I have personally dealt with Burnt Ridge for years and purchased numerous plants. Overall they have earned my business and respect. On that rare occasion when something wasn't right a quick call rectified the situation.

Reccomended without reservation.

This is a great nursery for rare fruiting trees and shrubs. I've ordered many plants from Burnt Ridge over the years, and I'm always pleased with both the service and the quality.

Occasionally, I have a tree that doesn't make it, but that's the risk you take with bareroot plants. I think it has more to do with our crazy weather than anything else. Most years, we go directly from winter to summer with no moderating spring temperatures in between, and that's very hard on the plants.

I'm especially thrilled with my hazelnut trees. I ordered 20 plants for a hedge and windbreak on both sides of my huge vegetable garden. They are full-grown now, and we harvested several bushels of nuts last year. We bought the Suite Nutcracker from Burnt Ridge for cracking the nuts in large batches. It works very well. We ate hazelnuts all winter and shared them with friends.

I love the Illinois Everbearing mulberry tree that I bought eight years ago. Very tasty! So I bought several more this year to use as shade trees in my field. I could go on about all the other plants, but I'll quit here. I just want to say, Thank You for everything!

Posted on May 9, 2011, updated July 7, 2011
Very uneven quality. The blueberries were just superb, some of the most fantastic root systems I've ever seen, and quite reasonably priced for this kind of quality. The fruit trees were okay, as were the cranberries, again, especially for the price. But the seaberries! There was some confusion about this part of my order; I made several changes, and they were really good-humored about keeping up, but in the process one cultivar was mistakenly deleted. They cheerfully re-added it after I enquired...but now I sort of wish they hadn't. It's labeled as a "one gallon specimen," but it's pathetically small and weak-looking with practically no roots: literally, I think they scraped the bottom of the barrel to come up with this poor little thing. I'll plant it, and nurse it along, and see how it goes. Not holding out a lot of hope for it, tho. Also, they could "only supply one out of two plants" of another cultivar although I ordered them a few months ago. Bottom line, I'd use them again if I can't find particular plants I'm looking for anywhere else, and really, those blueberries were marvelous...but I'm going to stay away from their seaberries FOR SURE!

I ordered two almond trees and a peach tree. All arrived in excellent condition. The peach tree was huge; the almond trees were small and took longer to break dormancy, but they are unusual varieties. All had nice roots. Packing was very good also. After a month they are all doing well. As with most tree orders it's best to place your order early in the season. This is one of the better places from which to buy bare root stock. I'm very satisfied.

I have ordered numerous plants from them over the years. Blueberries, honeyberries, several fruit trees have all arrived in good shape and thrived. My only quibble was the catalog description of the honeyberry--in my opinion it tastes like dirt. Otherwise, they have great selection, prices, and quick service. I have had no problems.

Posted on February 14, 2011, updated April 20, 2011
Posted on October 15, 2010, updated February 14, 2011
Well I thought I had hit the jackpot. These guys have everything. The ratings here were outstanding. I ordered and spent very little and seemed to have gotten a lot. The customer service was top notch, calling me when they needed to replace something on my order.

When I got the plants, they didn't really look all that hot. They kind of looked like they had been yanked out of the ground instead of dug. The paper had gotten dry in shipping and shipping seemed to take forever.

I gave them the benefit of the doubt and planted them. I planted 5 raspberries, 2 blackberries, 2 Taiwanese Raspberries and a cranberry. Only one raspberry ever sent out green shoots. I nursed the hell out of that plant and it died about a month later. I am meticulous about how I plant my plants. I've been doing this for a while.

I contacted them and so far, it took a week for them to get back to me and so far they seem kind of dodgy and adversarial. I asked for not a refund but new plants that actually survive. If that happens I will revise this.

It was my neighbor's idea to order a bunch of hazelnuts, and I was one of those who wanted two or three. We wanted improved hybrids, and this was the only US company that had them (after he sent in the order I found a closer nursery...) so I went ahead despite major trepidation after reading the reviews here. I was especially worried because it seemed condition of plants was the main issue--for SOME customers--so I feared that those farthest away had the problems. And we're in WV, pretty far away. But the order arrived without problems, and the plants were all in excellent condition, with buds beginning to swell, nice moist copious roots--they did vary in size. Mostly the Jeffersons (most desirable cultivar) were small while the various pollinator varieties, and my black currant, were quite large. I wouldn't hesitate to order from this company again.

Overall, my experience with Burnt Ridge was positive except for the condition of two plants, a Chinese Hawthorn and a 'large' Pixwell Gooseberry. Both were large plants with very few roots, and either arrived dead or died soon after planting, despite being soaked in water for 24 hours like the rest of the shipment. I did not contact the company about replacements, but instead simply ordered another hawthorn and gooseberry from One Green World as I knew I'd get high quality plants from them.

However, my three Aronia seedlings and three Serviceberry seedlings were well rooted (exceptionally so for two of the Aronias), and my Captivator gooseberry was also very well rooted and has been vigorous. My Invicta gooseberry has great roots but few branches, however it has leafed out and I expect it will grow considerably this season. I am still waiting for my 5 Magnolia vines to show any sign of growth, but I think it's still early for them...I hope. My Jumbo hardy kiwi is growing vigorously and the Sweet Scarlet goumi already has fruit forming since it leafed out after planting.

So I'm hoping there is life in the Magnolia Berry vines, but so far nothing. I would order from Burnt Ridge again, as they were very reasonable with their prices, but I'd probably limit myself to small orders next time to make sure what I wanted was stock that was well rooted.