I would like to start growing apple and pear trees this spring. I'm looking for mail order suppliers who would have good disease resistant varieties. Anyone who has had good experiences with above please advise.

Thanks!!!

ellen. what zone are you in. I can vouch for zone 5, michigan as thats where my fruit trees are all growing. grafting, pruning and growing fruit trees is my first passion. I have a mackintosh and a courtland. My mac is a disease resistant variety called a ReMac. They are both dwarf. If you choose the dwarf, they tell you that they don't live as long as the others. but I have seen many dwarfs live quite a few years. My Remac produces wonderful apples, good for eating and pies. But they don't store very well. Will last in the basement after picking about 2 months. I would not recommend buying fruit trees through the mails, go to a local nursery that you trust and buy them there, so you can look at and pick out a good sturdy tree with the branches spaced evenly, with a good leader branch. I grafted a yellow transparent limb on my remac tree last spring, it grew very nicely. I'm hoping to get an apple or two next fall from it. I also have plums, sweet and sour cherries, bartlett pears,and 3 peach trees that i started from pits.Hopefully this has helped....

Thank you Joan, I'm in zone 6, New Jersey. I thought I would get more variety from mail order, but I can see your point. I don't really want to have to rely on lots of spraying, so a disease resistant variety would be good. It's one of those projcts I keep putting off. I need to get this started before a few more years go by. thank again, ellen

I've been very happy with Miller Nurseries:

5060 West Lake Road
Canandaigua, N.Y. 14424

www.millernurseries.com

Ellen, even if you can't get disease resistant varieties, you can use surround to spray them with, it works great for all kinds of fruit trees. And is pesticide free, and will free your trees of all bugs without killing them.