Comments regarding California Tropical Fruit Tree Nursery

California Tropical Fruit Tree is NOT an honest company. No one should buy any tree from this company. I excitedly spent close to $1,500 on six Asian trees from this company in June 2023 and asked professional contractors to plant them. Four survived, but the Lychee tree and the red wax jambi tree died in five to eight days. I contacted the company immediately by sending the owner Terry the pictures in a text. He did NOT respond at all, presenting this customer did not exist. Three weeks later, I had to drive a long way to pay a visit to the company. A gentleman called Eric told me that it's the company's policy that there is no refund or replacement if a tree dies. However, the company has no such policy stated on its website. If I had known that, I would not have bought any tree from the company. Eric told me that he contacted the owner and that the owner would come soon to solve the problem. I waited for half an hour and then called the number on the website multiple times. Finally, the owner called back. Terry told me that he does not even live in town and he would not come at all. I don’t know which is a liar, Eric or Terry. Terry restated the no-return and no-replacement policy. He explained a lot. In the nutshell, he said that, so long as a tree dies, it is the buyer’s problem no matter what because the nursery only sells quality trees. However, not all my trees died. Some did die not because of my mishandling. I lost $570 to learn the lesson. Therefore, buying from this company is big mistake. No one should buy these expensive trees from this company simply because they are not available elsewhere in California. Like me, you may very likely lose money BIG if you buy. Watch out before you take money out of your pocket!!!

I bought 40-50 fruit trees and found out later that I paid 30%-50% more than other local nurseries charge for the same trees. A horticulturist who visited my property stated that the quality of some of the trees was low also (several were unbalanced with most or all branches coming off one side- I was able to exchange one, but several have this problem. Several trees that were sold as a 15 gallon had small root systems which appeared to have just been moved from 5 gallon pots. At least a couple appeared the horticulturalist to have been pruned incorrectly.) I do not recommend buying from this nursery, especially if you aren't an expert at identifying the quality of fruit trees and knowing what they are worth.

I recently purcharge two fruit trees from california tropical fruit nursery in visa, CA. There should be no sale tax but they did charged the tax anyway. I called before visited and was told a 5gal sapodilla was $45 but when I got There the limited English spoken staff said it's $55. I did not discover until I got home that I was over charged and the plant has no label, no common or scientific name. No receipt was provided as I bought it. They over charged me by $10 but that's is not the worst. The bad experience was when I try to call and asking for my receipt and about the sale taxes. She then told me that it was $65 on their price list, which i never got to see posted anywhere in the nursery or on their website. I also wanted to know the cultivar's name on the sapodilla I had bought and found out that the lady who answer the phone was clueless and can not answer a very simple question, regarding
the cultivar' name on the sapodilla they have sold to me. She got frustrated
and wanted to rush me off the phone instead of trying to find out what they
had. To make the long story short, this nursery is very unproffessional, had
bad customer service, did not care about how the customer feel, they just
wanted to rip off people, indifferences about thier price, they just name their price whatever they wanted did not have price on any of its plants, did not
clearly label all of its plants, changes their price within minutes whenever and do not borther to post it anywhere to be found except when you asked.
did not have a wide selection of plants as advertised, unknowledgeable
staff,

unfriendly service, operate out of a private home, do not use its own name
to do business. Instead, the charged said 'somewhere in time' as a name
where it should have been California tropical fruit like their website posted. It
nursery seems like an after thought and a joke. Price was not cheap, no
guarantee what so ever. I would NEVER reccommend it to anyone and
would never again doing business with them. Any business that is not using its own name to do business is very questionable? Buyer beware!

I have several problems with this business. 1) In my opinion, the "wholesale" prices are not any lower than retail (in fact, they may be more expensive). 2) When I called one of the owners "Amy" to resolve a problem I quickly found out that customer service is NOT number one. It seems that saving a dollar is more important to this company than pleasing the customer. 3) I hope your GPS is working because the nursery is located at a residence in a remote part of Vista.....their prices + the drive = go somewhere else. 4) I showed up on a Saturday (today) and the only employee that was available to help in tree selection was very nice but spoke limited English. Conclusion: I would NEVER recommend this nursery to anyone. Look at the other review sites, there seems to be a common theme with this company.