Gardening - Hipster Homesteaders

5 Excellent Nurseries We Buy Plants From Online

In our quest to fill our home and garden with amazing fruit trees, we’ve had to take a leap of faith and order from nurseries online as local stores simply did not offer the products we were looking for.

As such, we had to do some research into which stores were the best for our needs.

One problem we noted when researching plants online is that most nurseries don’t actually have listed photos of the exact plant you are going to buy. They have stock images, sure, but not the plant that is going to arrive at your doorstep. You generally just get a listed size measurement (either height or pot size in gallons) and that’s that. So we have ordered on faith, held our breath, and hoped for the best.

As it turns out, many of the nurseries we’ve ordered from have turned out to be quite wonderful and exceeded our expectations all around. So in this one, we thought we’d make a running list of all of the nurseries we’ve ordered from online in case you need some peace of mind when making your next purchase!

Note: We tend to only buy fruiting species online, such as citrus trees, vines, bushes, etc. We are unable to make any statements of quality for other plant types. It does seem like some of these companies could possibly source from several nurseries around the country, depending on plant type, so your mileage will vary.

When we bought our dragonfruit cactus, we were pretty pleased that it came already at a sufficient size. At about 18″ tall with a few vertical shoots, we were well ahead of the growing curve by months if not a year compared to buying a smaller cutting or growing from seed.

So, naturally, our next question was simply “how long will it take for the dragonfruit cactus to flower?”

As it turns out, the answer was another 1 1/2 years, where we’d estimate our cactus was about 2 1/2 years old, if not a bit older.

But throwing out a date range for this one is a bit hard, as age may not be the only indicator of bloom. So in this one, we thought we’d tackle some of the prevailing theories on how (and when) a dragonfruit blooms to help provide more details you need to keep in mind- how you train your dragonfruit may matter too!

If you’re getting into container gardening, at some point you’ll have to deal with a pest infestation. If you’ve landed on this article, then the odds are good you are already experiencing an issue.

Pests in your garden, particularly in citrus trees grown in containers, can be incredibly tricky to deal with. When the trees are outside, you have numerous options such as waiting for a good soaking from the rain, strong winds, a hot day to dry the soil out, or even the ability to apply large-scale insecticide applications.

Indoors, not so much.

Over the years, we’ve had numerous infestations of our plants once we brought them indoors including gnats, spider mites, mealy bugs, and other soil-based insects. So in this one, we thought we’d share some of the things we have tried to manage each of the populations, and identify which ones we think have (so far at least) worked the best!

Whenever we have a good piece of fruit, I often stop and wonder if I should collect the seeds to try and grow them in future seasons.

That curiosity got the better of me, and I did just that- taking seeds from all manner of fruit (namely fruit grown on trees), saving them in our fridge for cold dormancy, and planting them the following season. Some have been a success (so far), many have failed outright, and the experiment into growing fruit from seed is, admittedly, still ongoing.

But before doing this yourself, you need to stop and think about your plan here, because there are some very good reasons why you shouldn’t grow fruit from seed and others why you should.

So if you’re okay doing some careful research, finding the right type, and being patient, you may be able to make it all work. So let’s break down the pros and cons in this one!

I certainly don’t like to make my life easy, and this is especially true with my fruit tree collection.

Despite living in a decently warm Zone 6b, where common fruits like apples, peaches, cherry, and others reign supreme, my fruit tree goals look to warmer climates. When I realized that my south facing house was plenty bright indoors in the winter months, making our bedroom a defacto greenhouse, I knew I wanted to try and grow as many tropical fruit trees and other plants in pots and try my luck at having a harvest.

Now that we’re a few years into the effort, I thought I’d provide a quick snapshot of how all my trees are doing, and try to identify which ones may be on the easier side to grow in a less-than-ideal climate and others that have been much more difficult.

While a lot of this one is based on my own personal circumstances, including dealing with our local weather, overwintering concerns, and my own habits of watering/fertilizing/etc., this may provide some insight for others looking to do the same!

Please note: This article only features exotic fruit trees and plants we are personally growing or have tried to grow. This article does not feature trees we are not familiar with. So if it is not featured below, we haven’t planted it. For reference, we are located in Zone 6b and when plants are brought indoors for the winter. We are fortunate to have robust south/west facing windows plus additional grow lights. Our trees were purchased between 2021 and 2024, and those that have fruited will be noted.

For our tropical fruit trees in pots, getting watering right is critical. Water too much and you may trigger root rot and kill the plant. Water too little and you may lose fruit or, in extreme cases, kill the plant. When in doubt, I’d almost always go too dry as most of our trees can manage that scenario far better than being too wet.

So, that begs the question, when is the right time to water?

Most articles I had read on this topic simply offered a set watering frequency for each specific plant and left it at that. However, general watering intervals are often not good enough due to the many variables that impact our plants. Are your plants indoors or outdoors? Is the humidity high or low? Is it warm or cold? Is the plant big or small? Is it growing vegetatively or producing fruit? All of these can significantly influence how much water they will need.

To get a handle on your trees, you’ll need to do some checks!

As a collector of unusual tropical fruit trees, I decided to go on a hunt for some rather unique species that are hard to come by.

This search led me to the company Fast Growing Trees, a large online plant store that had, well, seemingly everything available for purchase.

After placing two orders, with five unique trees and/or cacti, I have to say that I have been quite pleased with the company all around!

Not everything is fun and games when it comes to growing tropical trees.

If you are like us, particularly growing tropical trees in climates they are not suited for (in containers), it is a constant battle to provide the right conditions in the less-than-ideal environment to allow the trees to thrive.

The tree that has been giving us the biggest headaches since acquiring it was none other than our Mauritius lychee tree. This one is particularly sensitive to, well, everything, and we unknowingly overfertilized it when we potted it after purchasing.

The leaves began to dry out, fall off, and we unfortunately became the victims of an untimely tree death.

So in this one, we thought we’d share a bit more about fertilizer burn, what signs we had on our lychee that indicated the problem, and what we tried to turn the tree around despite ultimately losing the tree.

Note: In this article we are addressing fertilizer burn on lychee trees as this was something we personally experienced. However, all plants are susceptible to fertilizer/salt burn in some capacity- lychee is simply more prone to it than most and the one we have personal experience in. So while the solution in this article could apply to other plants, we caution that other issues could be at play here. Likewise, fertilizer burn (and other similar issues) can result in tree death if not rectified in a reasonable period. Had I recognized the issue sooner, we suspect we could’ve saved our tree. That said, we have to admit that the steps outlined below are never guaranteed for survival. We are simply sharing the process that we followed when we identified fertilizer burn on our own lychee. Proceed with caution.

I have to admit, I have a bit of a problem when it comes to growing tropical fruit trees at home. I just love growing rare and exotic fruit that is either impossible to find fresh at a local store (or that doesn’t cost an arm and a leg in the process).

But as I live in a cooler climate, one most certainly not suited for tropical fruit trees (zone 6b/7), growing these trees is also a bit of a challenge that only the most determined gardeners with ideal growing environments should consider.

In this one, we want to go beyond the basics- checking to see if a plant will do well in your growing zone and if it could thrive in a container or not based on your indoor lighting conditions. We hope (and assume) that you have already checked these things. Here, we want to dive into some considerations to think about once you are committed!

These are truly some of the finer points I wish I knew before getting into growing tropical plants at home.

If you live in a cooler climate, as we do in zone 6b/7, odds are good you’ll have to bring some container plants inside for winter.

We love growing tropical fruit trees, and, as you can expect, they do not do very well outside when temperatures drop close to freezing (let alone as low as 0 °F that we sometimes see in extreme cases). As such, we bring our plants inside for the winter to help give them an environment that they can tolerate until the following spring when temperatures rise once again.

But there are some things you will likely experience when doing this, and after several seasons with our own citrus trees, we have some thoughts that you should know before heading into winter!

5 Excellent Nurseries We Buy Plants From Online

How Long Does it Take a Dragonfruit Cactus to Flower?

How to Deal With Pests in Potted Citrus Trees Indoors

3 Reasons Not to Grow Fruit from Seed (and 3 Why You Should)

Growing Exotic Fruits in a Cool Zone – Easy to Hard

3 Ways to Check if its Time to Water Your Container Trees

Fast Growing Trees Review – Are The Trees Worth It?

Diagnosing Brown Leaves on Lychee – Fertilizer Burn?

7 Things I Wish I Knew Before Growing Tropical Plants

5 Things to Know Before Bringing Plants Inside for Winter