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Where to Order Fruit Trees in Canada

April 8, 2019 | Orchard | 40 Comments

A newly planted bare root fruit tree that has not leafed out yet

Living in Prairie Canada, with a short season and low zone (2 or 3, depending on the winter and which zone map you use), I have a heck of a time finding good places to order fruit trees. There aren’t all that many places that carry ultra-hardy trees to begin with, and even fewer nurseries are willing to ship trees by courier or by mail.

Over the years, I have made a list of Canadian nurseries that have a good reputation, and who will ship fruit trees. I have personally ordered from most of these companies at some point in the last 10 years, and have been happy with the service I have received. Of the ones I have not personally ordered from, most have received good reviews from fellow growers that have ordered from them before.

Here is my big list of Canadian hardy fruit tree nurseries that will ship by courier or by mail, in alphabetical order:

Boughen Nurseries

Based in Nipawin, SK, Boughen Nurseries has a good selection of ultra-hardy (zone 2) fruit trees, including apples, pears, plums, and small fruit. I have ordered from them in the past, and was impressed with the size and vigour of the trees I received.

Corn Hill Nursery

Located in New Brunswick, Corn Hill Nursery specializes in roses (many of which are zone 2 hardy), but they also sell fruit trees and small fruits. While they only ship the large fruit trees by special arrangement, they will ship small fruits such as currants, haskaps, and grapes. We’ve gotten roses from Corn Hill, and they’ve done well even in extremely hard winters.

Golden Bough Tree Farm

Based out of Marlbank, ON, Golden Bough Tree Farm primarily specializes in landscaping trees such as birch and maple. However, they do have a small selection of fruit and nut trees, and they will ship bare-root trees within Canada.

Grimo Nut Nursery

Grimo Nut Nursery is based out of Niagara-On-The-Lake, ON. They specialize in nut trees, but also offer some fruit selections. Grimo’s trees are mostly suited to the warmer growing zones in Canada, though there are a couple of selections that are hardy to zone 3.

Hardy Fruit Trees

Specializing in hardy and ultra-hardy (zone 2-4) fruit trees, Hardy Fruit Trees is based in Rawdon, QC. They graft on full-sized rootstock, so if you are looking for dwarf trees, they may not have much for you. They have a good selection of trees, including some of the newer Russian pears that can be hard to find.

Haskap Central

Specializing in haskaps (duh!), Haskap Central is located in Henribourg, SK. They only sell haskaps, but they have a wide selection of cultivars to choose from, and they do not appear to have a minimum order.

Nutcracker Nursery

Based in Maskinongé, QC, Nutcracker Nursery is primarily focused on hardy nut trees (zones 3-5), but they also offer quite a broad selection of fruit trees, including some zone 2 & 3 apples, apricots, plums, and pears. They have really good descriptions of each variety. The website is not as user-friendly as some, but it is worth tolerating the endless scrolling to look through all of their varieties.

Oak Summit Nursery

I have not ordered from Oak Summit; I just discovered them recently, in February, 2024, though their website indicates they opened in 2020. They are located in Brandon, Manitoba, in zone 3, which is great for the Prairie growers, as so many of the fruit tree nurseries are located in much warmer zones in Ontario and Quebec. They have an impressive selection of hardy apple varieties.

Pépinière Ancestrale

Located in St-Julien, QC, Pépinière Ancestrale does not appear to have an English website option (the site is entirely in French), but Google Translate is your friend, here. They have a good selection of zone 2-4 fruit trees, as well as small fruits and grape vines.

Prairie Hardy Nursery

Prairie Hardy Nursery is based out of Two Hills, AB, and their shipping to AB and SK is much cheaper than shipping things in from Ontario or Quebec. They currently have a somewhat limited selection, but there are some interesting options in there, and everything is ultra-hardy, to zone 2. Prairie Hardy offers some more obscure / rare selections that are well suited to truly cold climates, and they are the only nursery I currently know of offering the ‘Arctic’ apricot series, which were bred in Saskatchewan.

Prairie Tech Propegation

Unfortunately, Prairie Tech is no longer in business.

Rhora’s Nut Farm & Nursery

Located in Wainfleet, ON, Rhora’s Nut Farm specializes in nut trees. Their trees are mostly suited for the warmer Canadian growing zones (zones 4-7), though there are a few varieties that are hardy to zone 3 or 2. They also offer some rare / unusual trees and shrubs, as well as small fruit.

Silver Creek Nursery

Silver Creek Nursery is located in Wellesley, ON. They are committed to organic and sustainable practices, and are in the process of becoming certified organic. Silver Creek has a wide selection of fruit tree varieties, including apricots, pears, apples, plums, sweet cherries, and peaches. While they do carry some zone 3 selections, most of their trees are more suited to the warmer Canadian zones (4, 5, and 6). Because of this, you will want to check the rootstock of your selections if you are in a colder zone. That said, I’ve gotten apricots from them that have survived terrible winters that killed off some of my other trees that should have been fully hardy.

T&T Seeds

T&T Seeds is primarily a garden seed seller, but they also carry some fruit trees and berries. They bill themselves as specializing in short-season annuals and perennials, and most of their fruit tree stock is hardy to zone 2 or, at most, zone 3. T&T is based out of Headingly, MB.

Treetime

Treetime is not primarily a fruit tree seller, and they generally offer bulk amounts of their trees. However, there is a good selection of berries, some fruit trees such as plums, and some interesting native fruit. Treetime is based out of Edmonton, AB.

Vignes Chez Soi

Located in Granby, QC, Vignes Chez Soi sells grape vines. They have a wide selection of hardy grapes, including a few that are hardy to zone 2 & 3. Vignes Chez Soi carries blue, red, and green grapes. They also have some seedless selections that will grow in the warmer zones of Canada (4&5). We are trying out a bunch of grapes from Vignes Chez Soi, as grapes are a bit easier to push zones with, given that you can take the vines down, lay them on the ground, and cover them to insulate them for the winter.

Whiffletree Nursery

From Elnora, ON, Whiffletree Nursery has a wide selection of fruit trees, including some unusual things like shipova and improved mountain ash. While most of their trees are geared more toward the warmer Canadian zones, they do have a significant number of zone 3 hardy fruit trees. Much of the rootstock they use is also hardy to colder zones (though you will still want to pay attention to the rootstock if you are in zone 2 or 3).

Do you know of other reputable fruit tree nurseries that will ship trees within Canada? Leave me a comment, and I’ll add it to my list!

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Big List of Where to Order Fruit Trees In Canada - Rural Dreams

By Jess

Ordering Bare Root Fruit Trees in Canada

March 1, 2019 | Orchard | No Comments

a row of young fruit trees in a grassy area

Just a couple of days ago, it was -35 at our place…and it’s almost March! While the newest zone map insists we are zone 3a, polar vortexes beg to differ, and drop us down into the -40 (and colder) range, which is pretty solidly zone 2. Locals say that these temperatures are actually closer to ‘normal’ than the 6 or so winters before; however, the extended (month-long) cold snaps are an anomaly. Climate change is clearly messing with weather patterns, and extended cold snaps may well be part of our new normal.

I suspect that long stretches of cold are not as hard on fruit trees as the melt-and-freeze cycle of chinooks that we used to get in Alberta, but we lost several of our young trees last winter, when we experienced similar long stretches of deep freeze. We plant several fruit trees and bushes every year, in the hopes of having a lush orchard at some point. This year, there were a couple of things I really wanted, so I ordered them very early, as they had sold out the year before. However, with all this cold, I am looking at ordering a few more trees to fill in the gaps I expect we’ll see in the orchard, come spring.

There are actually a pretty good selection of fruit trees that are rated zone 2 and 3 – the main trees that grow here are apples, pears, and plums, and there is a reasonable assortment of varieties from each type. However, there are not many tree nurseries that are actually within reasonable driving distance, which means we’re often ordering bare root fruit trees from far away.

We normally order bare-root trees. Bare-root trees are trees that have been grown in fields (rather than in pots), then dug up, washed off, and shipped by mail. We’ve had excellent success with bare-root trees; we’ve only had a few that did not start leafing out within a few weeks of planting, which is a pretty good success rate, when you consider how many trees we’ve planted. Our trees don’t always make it through the winters, though, which is mostly our own fault – we tend to ‘push’ zones a bit, and try out varieties that may not be fully hardy in our area.

Because we’re often ordering from far away, we’ve found there are a couple of things we really have to pay attention to.

A lot of the Canadian fruit tree nurseries that will ship trees (the majority, really) are in southern Ontario and Quebec. Most of them are at least zone 5, and a couple are as warm as zone 7. Nurseries generally strive to be accurate in their zone assessments, but a zone 5 or 6 nursery is not going to be able to conclusively say that any given tree will ‘make it’ in zone 2 or 3. Sometimes things are not quite as hardy as advertised, so there is an element of risk when you are ordering from a nursery several zones warmer than you.

The odd nursery really stretches credibility with their zone ratings, so if something seems too good to be true, like a peach or a sweet cherry that is rated hardy to zone 3…well, I recommend you put your wallet down and save your money, or maybe go buy a lottery ticket, instead.

The other issue that we occasionally come across is a perfectly hardy cultivar that is grafted on a rootstock that won’t take real prairie winter. We’ve found we really have to watch this with pears, as some of them are grafted on OhxF rootstocks, which are only supposed to be zone 4 hardy, or Quince A, which simply won’t take our winters at all.

We prefer full-sized Antonovka rootstock for our apple trees, as it seems to do well with both cold and drought, which are our big challenges. We’ve also got several apples on B118 rootstock that have survived at least a couple of winters, and seem to be thriving.

Our plums and apricots are generally grafted on Mustang rootstock, which handles prairie winter just fine. Last year, we ordered a couple of plums on Myrobalan, which is supposed to be fairly hardy, though I’ve never seen a zone rating; this winter will be a good test for them, as it has been very cold.

I do recommend ordering bare-root trees, overall. If you pay close attention to the rootstocks, and cross-reference zone ratings (especially for things that seem too good to be true), you can get access to a much wider variety of cultivars, and it is often considerably cheaper to order bare-root trees than to buy potted trees at the local big-box store.

I’ve created a big list of reputable Canadian bare-root fruit tree nurseries – check it out!