Frequently Asked Questions

The owner, Jason Willis, has been in the nursery business for the past 32 years. A naturalist and conservationist at heart, he studied Environmental Horticultural Technology and began his career in nursery sales at a local wholesale nursery. Later he opened a containerized long leaf pine seedling nursery that grew nearly 1 million trees per year. As his interest in orchard stock grew, he moved into retail nursery sales and management. From there, Jason's passion for horticulture developed into Willis Orchard Company, an online source to supply consumers with quality nursery stock at affordable prices.

Throughout the years, Jason has learned that quality products, fair pricing, and outstanding customer service are the cornerstones of any successful business and he has worked hard to apply these precepts to Willis Orchard Company. To this end, he constantly strives to improve his product, and he has assembled a knowledgeable and dedicated support staff.

Here at Willis Orchard Company we want to earn your trust and business, and we believe you will notice the difference in the superior quality of product and services received from Willis Orchard Company compared to those of other companies. Thank you for choosing Willis Orchard Company to supply your nursery stock needs. We genuinely look forward to serving you.

We are located in Cartersville, Georgia.

Our address is:

Willis Orchard Co., LLC.
200 McCormick Road
Cartersville, GA, 30120

Our physical address is:

Willis Orchard Co., LLC.
200 McCormick Road
Cartersville, GA. 30120

Please call to schedule an appointment for pickup orders, as we operate primarily as a mail-order company.

Call us toll-free at: 1-866-586-6283.

Our local phone number is: 770-386-1004.

If you would prefer to email us, email your questions to: orders@willisorchards.com.

If you email us: Please note that due to the volume of emails we receive daily, it may take up to 2-3 business days to receive a reply from us. If your concern is urgent, please call us.

"Cal." stands for caliper; caliper measures the thickness at the base of the trunk of a tree. When a tree is said to have a 1/4" cal., that means the base of the trunk is 1/4" thick.

Chill hours are number of hours below 40°F in the winter. A lack of chill hours is generally only a problem for very warm areas, such as Florida.

We do not offer a printed catalog. The most current listing for our products, sizes, and prices are here on our website.

Check to see if it is pruned. Many of our trees and plants will be professionally pruned by up to 1/3rd, before shipping, for two reasons. First and most importantly, annual pruning is highly recommended by research experts because it helps the plant grow better once planted and promotes better branching structure that leads to better fruit production.

Secondly, the maximum box height allowed by FedEx Home delivery is 107 inches (8.9 feet). So for example, orders of a single 7-8 foot tree, some pruning allows us to meet this height restriction and in turn allows you to receive your order at a reasonable shipping cost. However, there is the option to receive our larger trees via FedEx Freight delivery, without any pruning but at an additional cost. Call us for freight options or quotes.

Yes! However, we are first and foremost a mail-order plant company. We are not generally open to the public. You can call us and schedule an appointment for pickup so that we can have someone on site to best serve you.

It stands for Balled and Burlapped, which is similar to a potted tree. The tree is grown in the field along with our bare-root trees. However, this tree is dug in a way that the soil around the root is spaded out of the ground and placed in a wire basket that has been lined with burlap. Then it's tied tightly with twine to secure the root-ball that has been formed. The roots are much less disturbed with this transplanting process.

We are certified to ship bare root trees (100% void of soil) to California; however, due to the California Department of Agriculture regulations, there are some items that are prohibited to ship into the state. Some of the items which are prohibited are: Peaches, Plums, Apricots, Cherries, Nectarines, Almonds, Walnuts, Pecans, Hickory, Persimmons, Blueberries, Apples, Crabapples, Palms, Citrus, and Oaks.

We do! If you would like to purchase a gift certificate, please give us a call at 1-866-586-6283.

At Willis Orchard Company, we offer free professional pruning for our trees. Pruning is an important step in ensuring that your tree is healthy, will grow properly and will produce the maximum amount of fruit.
Pruning removes weaker branches and encourages growth for the stronger branches. Once our experts have selected the highest quality trees from our nursery, they will prune your trees before packaging them and sending them to your door. We recommend continuing to prune your tree throughout its life to promote the growth and health of your tree.
If you don't want this service, please let us know in the notes section of the checkout form.

Using your thumbnail or a small knife lightly scratch a small portion on the bark of the tree about 1/2" up from the ground or a few inches above the graft. If the tree is still green underneath, your tree is still alive and may need more time to produce or put-on leaves. If it is brown, that means your tree could be dead. If this is the case, email orders@willisorchards.com or call us toll-free at 866-586-6283 for replacement options.

We are required to collect sales tax on all orders in the state of GA, as well as some other states.

We accept all major credit cards (Visa, Mastercard, American Express, and Discover) through our online shopping cart, as well as through telephone. Checks or other payments are accepted through arrangement by telephone or you may mail in a check along with a copy of the Mail-In Order Form that you have filled-out or simply write your order on a piece of paper.

You can shop at Willis Orchard Company online with confidence. We have partnered with Authorize.Net, a leading payment gateway since 1996, to offer safe and secure credit card transactions for our customers.

The Authorize.Net Payment Gateway manages the complex routing of sensitive customer information through the credit card networks. The company adheres to strict industry standards for payment processing, including: 128-bit Secure Sockets Layer (SSL) technology for secure Internet Protocol (IP) transactions.

Industry leading encryption hardware and software methods and security protocols are used to protect customer information.

Compliance with the Payment Card Industry (PCI) Data Security Standard.

For additional information regarding the privacy of your sensitive cardholder data, please read the Authorize.Net Privacy Policy.

Willis Orchard Company is registered with the Authorize.Net Verified Merchant Seal program.

CVV is a security measure we require for all transactions. Since a CVV number is listed on your credit card, but is not stored anywhere, the only way to know the correct CVV number for your credit card is to physically have possession of the card itself.

How to find your CVV2 number:

On a VISA, MasterCard, Discover Card or Diners Club card please turn your card over and look in the signature strip. You will find (either the entire 16-digit string of our card number, OR just the last 4 digits), followed by a space, followed by a 3-digit number. That 3-digit number is your CVV2 number.

On American Express Cards, the CVV2 number is a 4-digit number that appears above the end of your card number.

We understand that you'd rather talk to a person to place your order.

Our phone hours are 8 AM - 5 PM Monday through Friday and 10 AM to 2 PM on Saturday. All times are Eastern Time. Times during Spring/Summer may vary.

You can call us at 1-866-586-6283 to place your order during our business hours!

You can order through our secure website using your credit card, you can contact us by telephone and place an order with your credit card, or you can use our mail-in order form to place your order and mail a check with your order.

For our order form click here.

Of course! To pre-order, you need to place your order as you normally would, and the preordered items will ship at their designated ship date (as noted on your order).

To have an order delayed, you will need to contact us to let us know when you want it shipped. You will need to contact us through email or phone as soon as possible, because we try to ship out most of our products the same day, if at all possible.

Sometimes, our products need to be packed in larger boxes, and our carrier partners charge a bit extra for those. This small fee helps us cover the costs to ensure your items are packed with care and shipped to you as quickly and safely as possible. (For packages over 48" in length, FedEx/UPS apply an oversize fee.)

Life isn’t perfect, accidents and things can happen so if your delivery is damaged during shipping, is missing product, or contains damaged or unsatisfactory products, please contact us within 3 days of delivery.  We will ask questions, ask you to save the damaged box and ask for pictures so that we can see what you see and can make it right!

Please refer to our Terms and Conditions.

Orders made with cards by online purchase will be charged within 24 hours of purchase. Any cancellation made prior to the charge will be voided. Any cancellation made after the 24-hour period will be charged the greater of a $10.00 cancellation fee or 10% of the purchase price.

Orders made with cards by telephone with a customer service representative will be required to review the invoice and terms and conditions and then complete and return an authorization to charge form via email, mail or fax before the order is binding. Once the paperwork is complete and the card is charged any cancellation made after the 24-hour period will be charged the greater of a $10.00 cancellation fee or 10% of the purchase price.

Orders made by wire transfer or with check or money order are also subject to a cancellation fee which will be the greater of a $10.00 cancellation fee or 10% of the purchase price.

Orders that are shipped and refused at delivery, returned after accepting delivery and/or cancelled after shipping from our facility will forfeit the shipping fees incurred and will be charged the greater of a $20 restocking fee or 20% of the purchase price.

WillisOrchards.com takes precautions to protect its customers' information. When you submit sensitive information via the website, your information is protected both online and offline. When our order form asks you to enter sensitive information (such as your credit card number), that information is encrypted and is protected with the best encryption software currently available in the industry - SSL.

Anytime you are browsing our website, check your address bar. You should see "https://" at the beginning of the address. This indicates that your traffic to and from our website is secure and encrypted. We regularly perform security audits on our website, servers, computer networks, computers and devices to make sure they are secure.

WillisOrchards.com is secured via the Go Daddy Secure Certification Authority. WillisOrchards.com uses Authorize.Net to securely process payments. Learn more about Authorize.Net at www.authorize.net.

Access to all of our users' information is restricted. WillisOrchards.com operates in a secured and locked facility. Only employees who need the information to perform a specific job are granted access to personally identifiable information.

We take your privacy very seriously, If you wish to have your information removed from our database, you may contact us call toll free at 1-866-586-6283 to request that your information be removed. However, please be aware that for future transactions, you will be required to re-enter your information.

Read our Privacy Policy.

We can ship all over the continental United States. However, due to agricultural regulations we are not permitted to ship certain items into California. Give us a call to verify any California deliveries, if you are unsure of your local restrictions.

Our trees are shipped in a state called "semi-bareroot." We remove the soil around the root of the plant and replace it with a moisture retaining gel called Terrasorb. This keeps the roots moist during transit and lessens the weight of the tree for ease of planting when you receive it. Large orders may be shipped via freight carriers and the trees may be left in the containers. Container grown trees can be shipped in the pots if you request and are willing to pay for the additional freight charges. Freighted trees are sometimes (not always) shipped in pots.

Our evergreen plants ship year-round. Most of our trees and plants are deciduous, meaning that they can only be shipped in their dormant state, void of leaves. These trees are typically shipped later in the Fall (starting around late October), through Winter, and into Spring, ending in March. We encourage you to order well in advance of your expected delivery date. Many items will be sold out by Spring. Therefore, if you want Spring delivery, we strongly suggest that you place your order in the Fall.

Nearly all orders ship via FedEx Ground; in some cases, orders must be shipped using one of our freight carriers.

Unless you specifically request a future ship date, we give an estimate of 10 to 14 business days to ship an order during the busy season of November through April, due to large order volume. In many cases, however, orders are received much more quickly than that, but unless prior arrangements are made, no guarantee is made as to arrival date.

We ship out orders when all products on a given order are ready to ship.

For example:

You have an order with 2 items. One item ships in the Fall, the other ships in the following Spring.

Unless you make other arrangements with us, your order will ship in the Spring with both items.

You may receive a warning about split shipping if your cart contains items that we can and cannot ship right now. This means that we may split up your order so the items on your order that can ship now will be shipped as soon as possible (usually within 10-14 business days.) The items that cannot ship now will be shipped when it is the proper planting time. Please be aware that split shipping an order may incur additional shipping charges. We will contact you if additional shipping is necessary.

When an item is too big or too heavy to ship via normal ground carriers, we will ship that item via a freight carrier. Because shipping an item via a freight carrier is usually significantly more costly to ship than shipping via a ground carrier, we strongly recommend that you call us to get a quote before placing your order on our website.

We're sorry, but due to packaging and handling costs, Willis Orchard Company cannot offer free shipping on our products.

Some of our products need to be packed in their own box, separate from the rest of your order. This small shipping fee helps us make sure your items are packaged securely and delivered to you safely and efficiently.

Dig the hole two to three times as wide as the root system to allow loosened soil for new root growth. Fruit trees like well drained soils so to add 1/3 sand or pea gravel mixed in with the extracted soil is recommended for compact or heavy clay soils. However, the hole needs to be just deep enough so that the tree is planted at the same depth at which it was grown. Do not bury the trunk. The base of the trunk should be at ground level. Backfill the hole with the soil and or gravel mix. Tamp the soil with your foot to remove any large air pockets that may exist. Now build a soil barrier around the circumference of your hole to form a dam that will return water. Finally, water the fruit tree. Soak it. Adding a two or three inch layer of mulch around the tree is recommended.

Frequent watering is crucial for newly planted trees. Water your tree daily or every other day for the first two weeks. Over the course of a month or two, taper off watering to twice a week as the tree establishes itself. It is very important not to allow the soil to dry out with your newly planted tree. After a few months, the tree will acclimate and routine watering will not be so critical for its survival. As for how often to water after this point, will depend on the climate, the seasons, and the frequency of rainfall. In most cases, a good soaking two or three times a week in the summer months and decreasing to once a week in the colder season should be adequate.