Badgersett or Oikos

Does anyone buy from Badgersett or Oikos? Good Results?

Thanks in advance

Dave Rogers

I purchased from both places oikos has a lot better customer service but they can be difficult to get a hold and routinely get orders Mixed up. The quality of the products are good. badgerStreet is almost impossible to have any direct contact with either by email or telephone I can tell you that badger Street plants are extremely vigorous I bought chestnuts and their hybrid hazels and their research on chestnuts and hazels is far more extensive however oikos has tremendous variety. In both cases I didn't know maintenance on the plants except for the initial planting in survival was above average. Both nurseries are plant propagation specialist and are not specialist in retail however that is why they have developed the products they have.

I had very good results from Oikos's plants, even though I was in quite a different climate from them (GA and they are in MI).

I've ordered from both of them several times since 2009, including chestnuts and hazelnuts from both. I've had pretty bad survival rates of stuff from Badgersett, and much better survival rates from Oikos. It's too early to tell which will yield more as production is only beginning, but the form of the plants have many differences already, with the Oikos ones mostly growing faster than anything from Badgersett. Oikos has quite a variety of strains itself.

I think the main reason why I've had such poor survival with anything from Badgersett is because their shipping times are wrong for the climate in southern Missouri. All the Badgersett plantings I've done were in 2010, 2011, and 2012, three years in a row with extremely hot, dry summers. Despite watering frequently, plantings of Badgersett tubelings that were sent in June had about 90% mortality within a couple of months. Badgersett reccommends planting them in early summer, but they are in a much cooler climate. If you're in a hot summer climate and want to order from Badgersett, I'd reccommend getting the bareroot tubelings shipped in spring. I planted some of them in April and still had about 50% mortality that summer, better than the later plantings but still bad. Almost all that survived the first year are still alive, but still seem to grow more slowly than the Oikos selections.

Plantings from Oikos during the same years with similar soil, watering etc. had less than 25% mortality. I think it's partly because they had better root systems on arrival, but also because they ship at more reasonable times for this climate. November is the best time for planting here, but early/mid March is also pretty good, and Oikos will usually ship them when I want them. Badgersett won't even ship their bareroot tubelings until well into April when in many years, the trees in this area are pretty much leafed out.

If only Hidden Springs Nursery had nut trees. I've ordered many fruit trees from them and have had almost zero mortality, with their trees almost universally getting off to a great start. I've never found another nursery like them, but unfortunately their selection isn't that huge and they don't do nuts, only fruit.

I agree with Richard my main complaint about badger Street as they send the things in June I don't care what climate you're in but even up north here June is too late to plant I tried to stop them from shipping since I was expecting the tubelings to be sent in April or May and they sent them anyways so that's a big problem with badgerStreet. Oikos won't send anything after about mid-May.

Oikos is great, great customer service, really cool and interesting products. I'd say they're stuff tends to be more "wild", less focused on immediate harvest potential, more on disease resistance and hardiness. I love Oikos, especially for colder climate stuff.

Badgersett in my opinion should outsource their business side of things. They have no customer service at all, and they like it that way.
They have amazing breeding going on and might end up revolutionizing agriculture, but they seem to be 10 years away from providing those products to the everyday customer. I hope at least.
They're website is literally from the 90's, and is almost set up to confuse people away.
I compare them to the brilliant scientist with no people skills, their work and plants have unbelievable potential, but they seem to scoff at sharing it.
I am hoping again and again they simplify and modernize their ordering system and expand their business side of the operation.
I'll be a very interested customer when that happens but until then I will steer clear of them.