Seems to me that you need to consider mail-order sources. You can definitely get a much better selection, and you would probably receive more freshly dug trees. Below is a list of fruit and nut tree sources with G.WD. ratings and web addresses. Two mail-order nurseries that pop in my head, for the trees you mentioned, are Nolin River Nut Tree Nursery and Rolling River Nursery. You can also find others listed in the link below.

Here is a link that might be useful: Sources for Fruit Trees and Plants

BTW, if you are considering adding black walnuts, keep thousand cankers disease in mind. I fear that black walnuts will soon be joining the American chestnut.

I've had great luck with eBay for small apple trees. 95% survival.

Thanks for the tips.

Dear riker-lakes Middle Georgia,
You may want to consider this long-established Georgia nursery:

Ison's Nursery and Vineyard
P. O. Box 190
6855 Newnan Road
Brooks, GA 30205
(770) 599-6970

Ison's Website indicates they supply almonds, black walnuts, chestnuts, English walnuts, hazelnuts (filberts), and pecans in a wide range of sizes. Ison's is a retail nursery, and they ship. Just type _Ison's_ into the Google search box to access their Website. A print catalog is available by request.

I don't have any personal experience with Ison's, but I do, relatively frequently, see/hear negative feedback about them. When I saw them mentioned, above, I remembered hearing some of complaints and took a look at their rating on Garden Watchdog. It's not nearly as bad as TyTy, but it also isn't in the same league with some of the better nurseries. I guess if you actually went there, you might have better luck, but I would think twice before mail-ordering from them if it were me.

I would think twice before paying any attention to brandon7 6b's comments about Ison's Nursery. Unlike Brandon, I have ordered from Ison's and have been pleased with the quality of their horticultural products.

Jay,

Maybe you have some financial interest in Ison's. Otherwise, it doesn't really make sense why you would want to aggressively push a nursery with a rather poor reputation compared to many others. While you may have had good luck with Ison's, many many others haven't. Your experience certainly wouldn't negate others' experiences.

Here are a couple of sample reviews of Ison's:

"I ordered (2) Muscadine Grape Vines and received them in January. Both were in poor condition...I've spent the past 2 weeks now trying to contact someone by telephone and emails for a replacement. They don't answer the phone (let voice mail answer it) and they haven't responded to 3 emails I've sent. It seems that once they have your money, they really don't care what happens to you or your plants. I'm very disappointed with their lack of basic customer support."

"I ordered nearly $200 worth of 5-6' peach trees (4 Saturn peach trees) from them and received 3-4 ' single "twigs" and 2 of them were dead. I emailed them and it took more than 2 emails to get their attention and when the raplacements arrived they were apparently the 5-6' original ones that should have been sent in the first place but they too were DEAD....I am still waiting to hear from Ison's about a replacement or refund. My husband said it looks like I can kiss that money goodbye and maybe it is an expensive lesson I have learned...My experience was VERY VERY NEGATIVE."

Both of the above reviews are from Garden Watchdog. There are many others included on that site and other gardening forum sites. A quick search reaffirms that you either must have gotten lucky, or have some ulterior motive for your misguided advise.

My Isons experience was from two years ago. I was working in the retail green industry and we ordered from Isons. The plants were slightly more inexpensive than other places but they were quite small, and all were bare root. It took us over a week longer than delivery date to get our order and upon arrival the plants looked like they had been sitting for shipping a week longer too. They did OK, but we were never told they were bare root. It took too many phone calls to make the transaction happen.
That said, I do know people who have gone to Isons in person and had a very pleasant experience and of course then bare root plants were not a problem. So perhaps their shipping operation is not so hot but shop in person is the way to go?

We had an odd experience at Johnsons (not negative, just "odd", shopping in person, however getting shipments from Johnson's was always a pleasure.

Dear Brandon7 6b,
Sigh. May I be so bold as to point out to you that ryker-lakes mid GA's question, or inquiry, or posting, specifically requested leads to fruit/nut nurseries in Middle Georgia. I provided ryker-lakes with a lead to a nursery with which I've had pleasant dealings. I'm sorry that my mentioning this long-established Middle Georgia nursery ruffled your feathers. As you well know, anyone with basic Internet skills is able to find numerous fruit/nut mail-order nurseries scattered around the country. Point your browser to Cyndi's Catalog of Garden Catalogs to find scores of them. However, a person may not be familiar with the "brick and mortar" nurseries just a short drive away.

Jay,

I don't have any problem with you pointing out that nursery. I was just throwing my 2 cents in about it, initially, because, although I have not had direct dealings with them, I have been informed/warned about them through personal correspondences and through reading accounts on various internet forums, including GardenWeb. As I initially said, and GGG's account supports, a personal visit to Ison's might be very fruitful (pun intended).

BTW, great tip on Cyndi's Catalog. I saw that a few years ago and have run into it a few times, but I had almost forgotten about it. It looks like she has some listing that I don't have on my list. Looks like I need to compare notes and update.

Does anyone know of good Nursery in the Lithonia / Dekalb area that supplies various types of nuts & or nut trees?

I would like to just make a comment or two about the negative comments posted above regarding Ison's Nursery. My name is Greg Ison and am co/owner of Ison' Nursery, in our business there is always the possibility of someone not having the results they wished for or were disappointed in the stock regardless if the size and description were met, plain and simple our business is based on repeat customers, if a customer is not happy with their plants or trees we will either replace or refund the money, if the complaint is a year after planting we will replace at 1/2 purchase price. Both of the above mentioned complaints were handled and corrected internally between the customer and myself, and neither customer was out money or plant material. My family has always tried to treat our customers fairly by offering an honest product at an honest price, that is why we have the longevity that we have. Thx Greg Ison

Greg, have you considered responding to the Watchdog comments? That website allows and invites vendor to respond, and many have done so VERY successfully. My experience has almost always been that ratings, with a significant number of entries, turn out to be pretty accurate, but I also consider good explanations or resolutions as a sign of good customer service. I'm sure that every nursery has problems some time or other, but, when I see a nursery that went the extra distance to address those issues, I feel much safer in trusting them with business.

Brandon, do you KNOW that Isons went the extra mile to provide great customer service? Mr. Ison says he does, but I dealt with him, and some of his staff, and this was not the case. Unreturned telephone calls, shipping put off again and again, and a number of other issues were a problem which we could just not get resolved. Again, this was a bulk order for a retail outlet, not a personal smaller order. However I personally never had any of these problems with any of the other Georgia fruit nurseries we ordered from.

GGG, No I sure don't. I don't have any personal experience with Ison's, and your experience is exactly what I would expect based on what I have heard and read. I was only saying that Greg should at least respond to the Watchdog comments IF he feels they are untrue or resolved. If the problems were resolved, the people might even change their ratings. If he's bluffing and didn't take care of the problems, he'd probably be better off just ignoring the whole thing and letting the nursery keep its mediocre reputation.

Thanks for clarifying! I thought you were just taking the nice man's word ;)
The odd thing is, I had not even heard of Isons at all until someone in the wine industry told me about them. They are known in this area for carrying nice stock of various native grapes.
I went and read gardenwatchdog (which I did not before, because we were getting a local shipment and not mail order) - every issue is exactly the same issue as we had. Apparently they can not manage to get shipping out on schedule very well!

GGG, Feel free to either email me on the website or call the office, I will be happy to go over your experience and do my best to correct any issues you may have, I am not sure what you initially ordered and why the shipping was an issue, but some items that we carry will be shipped later than others, usually muscadines, blueberries, and blackberries are shipped relatively early and fruit trees and other are usually late Dec/early to mid Jan, depending on how cold the fall was and how quickly stock goes dormant, we do not strip leaves off or do anything to stock prematurely to make it go dormant in order to ship sooner, we find we are putting unwanted stress on the trees. As far as commenting on GWD, I feel it is better to either call or email the customer personally and handle it in house, if the customer chooses to change his or her rating after a negative comment that is that customers choice, but in the past some customers have changed their rating based on our effort to please the customer as best we can. Any customer that has felt slighted or mistreated can call me anytime, and I will make every effort to correct the situation. Thx Greg Ison

Greg,
Thanks for your comments about Ison's Nursery. They are a good counter-point to ggg's and brandon's observations and are in keeping with my view of your nursery.

I think I went over the circumstances and no, none of our issues were ever taken care of by a telephone call. Most of our calls went unanswered and unreturned. Those returned were given constant excuses about shipping dates.
But we solved the problem ourselves! We just didn't do business with you again! Problem solved!

Isons is a short drive and they have the goji shrubs I want to try.

Should be ok to drive and pick out what I want.

Is isons website prices the same as in person prices? They have the selection I want and would love a price discount for buying in person