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Our Annual Growing and Shipping Schedule

The nursery is a seasonal business with an annual cycle of planting, growing, and shipping. All fruit trees, scions, and rootstocks are shipped to customers during our spring shipping season in March and April. Here are some dates of interest.

January & February

  • Order in January – or before! – to get best selection for spring shipping
  • Scion inventory posted for spring shipping

MARCH & APRIL

  • SPRING SHIPPING of trees, scions, and rootstocks – over an 8-week period
  • Last chance to order trees for spring shipping – or wait another year
  • Last chance to order rootstocks for spring shipping – or wait another year
  • Last chance to order scions for spring shipping – or wait another year

May & June

  • Spring inventory sold out completely
  • Spring planting of rootstocks for August budding of new tree crop

July & August

  • JULY 15 = Deadline to order custom trees for shipping 19-20 months later
  • Nursery field work including budding of Cummins trees and custom trees

September & October

  • Inventory of new tree crop posted online (for shipping 19-20 months later)

November & December

  • Fall digging of trees to store the spring shipping crop in climate control during winter dormancy

Some Shipping Details

  • How we ship: UPS Ground. Also, you can arrange to pick up your trees at the farm in Ithaca, NY.
  • Shipping dates: We schedule orders to ship in a given week, which is a target range. Depending on weather and our workflow, trees may be shipped a week before or after the target week. We will contact you ahead of your shipping dates to confirm, and UPS will send tracking information to your email once the order ships.  If you have a preference that your trees to ship out on a specific day, we can schedule to ship that day although we cannot guarantee the exact date of arrival. As an example, if you want your trees to ship on (hypothetical) Monday, April 5, we'll set your order to ship that day, instead of the more general target of "the week of April 5." You can convey this information to us at checkout, and contact us with any questions.
  • Shipping & handling: Shipping is billed at cost, and the shipping price shown at checkout reflects real-time UPS Ground quotes.  Handling is billed at cost, and reflects actual material costs used to ship trees, such as boxes, root wrap, staples, and tape.






Featured Products

A few things we're loving right now...

Honeycrisp Apple on G.935

The rock-star, cold-hardy apple from Minnesota.

Intrepid Peach on BY520-9. Nematode Resistant Peach/nectarine

A late-blooming, extremely cold-hardy, freestone peach.

Porter's Perfection Apple on G.969

A bittersharp English cider variety.

Danube™ Cherry on Mahaleb

A sweet-tart Morello-type cherry from Hungary.