This Costco Fruit Trees guide is NOT sponsored and was written based on our honest experience as a mom and dad growing an urban homestead!
We picked up our first fruit tree at Costco just about 10 years ago!
I’m so excited to show you which one we got and what it looks like today 🙂
We’ve picked up several other fruit trees from Costco since then as well and we’re very pleased with the results!
Keep reading to learn:
- where does Costco get their plants from
- what live plants Costco does have
- fruit trees for sale at Costco plus their price tags
- how to plant fruit trees
- how to care for your new fruit tree
- a tour of our little urban homestead and the trees we have
- when to expect fruit and what to do with it
Disclosure: Affiliate links are used throughout this post. You can read our full disclosure here.
Costco Fruit Trees: How to Plant + Care for Best Results
Choosing trees and plants at Costco doesn’t have to be difficult.
We’ll teach you about what’s working for us and how to shop smart for fruit trees in this guide.
Where does Costco get their plants from?
Costco gets their plants from a variety of nurseries including:
- Brookdale Treeland Nurseries
- Van Belle Nursery
- Darvonda Nurseries
- Horticana Nursery
You can sometimes find more details on the individual tags attached to each plant for more information.
What live plants does Costco have?
Here’s the full list of Costco fruit trees we came across this year.
The following fruit trees produce one type of fruit and cost $32.99:
- Braeburn Apple
- Fuji Apple
- Gala Apple
- Granny Smith Apple
- Pink Lady Apple
- Red Gravenstein Apple
- Red Jonagold Semi-Dwarf Apple
- Spartan Apple
- Yellow Delicious Apple
- Frost Peach
- Reliance Peach
- Anjou Pear
- Bartlett Semi-Dwarf Pear
- Shinseiki Oriental Pear
- Nijisseiki Oriental Pear
- Green Gage Plum
- Early Golden Plum
- Early Italian Prune Plum
- Italian Prune
- Mount Royal Plum
- Brookgold Plum
- Beauty Plum
- Montmorency Sour Cherry
- North Start Sour Cherry
- Bing Sweet Dwarf Cherry
- Carmine Jewel Cherry
- Lapin Sweet Dwarf Cherry
- Stella Sweet Cherry
- Sam Sweet Cherry
- Vandalay Sweet Cherry
- Black Mission Fig
- Celeste Fig
- Chicago Fig
- Desert King Fig
- Ischia Fig
- Kadota Fig
- Olympian Fig
- Persimmon
Combo Fruit Trees produce four types of fruit and cost $48.99 each:
- Combo Apple – 4 Way
- Combo Cherry – 4 Way
- Combo European Pear – 4 Way
- Combo Fruit Salad – 4 Way
- Combo Plum – 4 Way
The following citrus trees comes in matching planters and cost $35.99 each:
- Calamondin
- Meyer lemon
- Key lime
- Limequat
The following berries are available in two gallon containers at Costco and are priced at $15.99 each:
- Blueberry
- Cherry
- Raspberry
- Salmonberry
- Saskatoon berry
- Strawberry
Price Guide
Here’s a quick breakdown of how fruit trees are priced this year:
- Single Variety Regular Fruit Trees: $32.99
- Four-Way Fruit Trees: $48.99
- Citrus Planters: $35.99
- Fruit/Berries Bushes: $15.99
- Strawberry Baskets: $13.99
More Costco Reviews:
- Costco Garden Center: Our Online & In-Store Shopping Guide
- Hunter Boots Review: Must-Have Gardening Footwear!
- The Costco Lolë Belt Bag: Here’s Why We Love It
What to start with if you’re new to gardening
Hanging baskets are a great first step!
Strawberry baskets
From experience, I’d start with a couple of strawberry baskets – since they get hung up, all you need is a couple of sturdy plant hooks to keep producing fruit for years to come.
Trust me, when you water your strawberries, these baskets can heavy and even crack.
Hanging baskets utilize dead space that wouldn’t get used otherwise rather than taking away from valuable growing space on the ground!
Fruit trees
If you’re not sure how committed you are to growing fruit trees, consider starting with a four-way fruit tree.
These are nice because they’re self-pollinating with all of the different fruit they produce.
We started with a couple of regular fruit trees because our goal is to get a big predictable harvest in our favorite specific varieties.
Citrus Trees
These are super fun to grow but they’re a little finicky and won’t give you anything you can eat on its own.
Feel free to get one because its neat but don’t start out with these.
It could break your confidence and leave you feeling down about your ability – unfortunately, we learned this the hard way after gifting a couple to family members who didn’t fair well with them!
Fruit Bushes
If you have the space, start with raspberries!
These plants are very resilient and produce a ton of fruit.
Blueberries are fantastic too but we’ve met quite a few people who struggle with them.
We’d recommend picking up blueberries after you’ve been gardening for a bit.
How to plant fruit trees
Here’s how to plant a Costco fruit tree step-by-step:
- find a spot where your tree will get at least 6 hours of sunlight a day and dig a hole double the size of the pot
- add some bone meal to the bottom of your hole and water it heavily
- slowly maneuver your plant out of the pot it came in and place it in the hole
- make sure the hole you’ve dug is at least the size of the distance from the end of your root ball to the soil mark on the fruit tree’s trunk
- spread out the roots and plant the tree in the centre of the hole – ask a friend or family member spot you to make sure your tree is straight
- note where your graft is and face it towards the sun – make sure you don’t bury it
- fill your hole with 30% native soil and 70% organic compost (we recommend this one) and pack it firm so the tree stays standing upright
- water immediately and be sure to keep it watered regularly while it establishes roots*
*for good measure, use your index finger to regularly check that the soil is moist 1 inches below the surface
You don’t have to worry too much about fertilizing for 2 to 3 years since Costco fruit trees are still young plants.
If you get fruit this year or next year but it’ll be a very small yield.
It’s best to pick the fruit off so the tree can build a strong canopy to support future large yields!
How to care for your fruit tree
Be sure to water and prune your trees regularly.
If a branch is getting too heavy, you’ll notice that the tree begins to lean like this.
You’ll also want to weed around the area and check for pests and/or fungus.
If your peach and/or nectarine trees experience peach leaf curl, it’s nothing to worry about and can be treated.
However, be sure to take care of it soon as trees that are untreated could die within two to three years.
Fruit trees are heavy feeders so its important to give them organic fertilizers that are high in nitrogen – give this one a try!
For more information on peach leaf curl, check out this article.
Urban homestead tour
Just because you don’t live in the country doesn’t mean you can’t homestead too!
While we’re disappointingly not zoned for livestock where we are (we would LOVE to have chickens), we’re making do with all we can and look forward to bee keeping soon.
We’ve made it a goal to become as self-sufficient as possible and absolutely adore the opportunity that creating an urban homestead has given us to nourish our family and teach our children about the importance of these skills.
Front Yard
Currently, we have 10 blueberry trees on our property and used them to build a living fence between us and our neighbour’s driveway.
There wasn’t a fence here to begin with but there was an opportunity to grow more food.
We didn’t buy these from Costco and instead, purchased a few large ones and some different varieties at our local nursery for a steep discount at the end of the season!
To give you an idea, large blueberry trees like this cost $300 at a garden store and are between 10 and 15 years old.
We got our first one for half price and then picked up two more for $50 each when all of the fruit was gone!
Our first year with one of these trees gave us about 10 pound of blueberries.
At the front, we also have a:
- raised bed
- garden island (contains a blueberry tree, cherry bush, two kiwi plants)
- two hazelnuts trees
- almond tree
- peach tree.
Instead of planting pretty things that flower, we wanted everything we have to produce food for our family and are really happy with the results.
Our raised bed, peach tree and cherry bush were purchased at Costco.
Backyard
In the back, we have 9 fruit trees planted in the ground.
- apricot
- nectarine
- fig
- plum
- 3x apple trees
- 2x pear trees
Of these, five of them were purchased at Costco – two of the apple trees, one pear, the apricot and the plum tree.
Our nectarine, fig, one of our pear trees, and an apple tree were purchased from local nurseries.
Related: 15 Best Tips for Starting an Urban Homestead (Wherever You Are!)
Patio Garden Trees
We’re fortunate enough to have a back deck and a front patio as well and during the summer, we keep the following citrus trees outdoors:
- grapefruit
- orange
- lime
- lemon
Should you choose to get these, we recommend planning to keep them in front of a bright window or under a grow light during the fall and winter months.
You can usually find all of these types of citrus trees at Costco.
We bought all of our citrus trees except the large grapefruit and navel orange trees at Costco.
When to expect fruit
I actually bought the two apple trees we have from Costco with fruit already on them – they had one and two apples on them and this year, it looks like they’ll have about 10 each.
Most apple trees require a pollinator though, so you’ll want to make sure that your trees compliment each other if you don’t get a 4-way combo tree.
Like we mentioned above, as tempting as it is to leave the fruit, its best to it off of a young tree so it can focus on growth and building roots.
We picked up our D’Anjou pear tree way back in 2014 though and are finally seeing fruit this year!
Although the tree is partially self-fruitful, having a cross-pollinator earlier on may have helped us get fruit sooner – we added a Bosc pear to our backyard last year.
This tree is around 15 feet tall now and we might be able to pick fruit from our balcony, haha.
How to use and preserve fruit
Obviously, there is nothing like fresh fruit picked from your very own trees!
But if you’re expecting a lot of it like we are, I can’t recommend learning preservation techniques enough.
You can do something as simple as peeling your fruit and putting it in the freezer BUT freezer space is limited and requires electricity which costs money and could go out.
We’ll talk about more food storage and preparation tips one day 😉
Those old school skills your parents or even grandparents used to do will serve you well.
I canned for the first time last year and am absolutely hooked now.
I highly recommend using small mason jars like these to store your homegrown foods.
Canning is a wonderful skill to learn but it’s such a shame if not all of your hard work is consumed and then goes to waste – I’ve been there!
Costco Fruits Trees (How to Plant + Care for Best Results): Final Thoughts
We absolutely love the selection and price of Costco fruit trees.
While this year was a little more limited than usual, we have seen things like Walnut trees in the past.
Apple, pear, and cherry trees are super common while nut trees are a bit harder to find.
At the prices Costco has them for though, these fruit trees are absolutely worth picking up.
If you wait a little bit later into the season, you can snag an apple tree for as little as $24.97!
That’s how much they’re on clearance for at our local warehouse right now.
Don’t expect to find plums or other more exotic fruit trees for such a low price tag though.
If you’re ready to start your journey to self-sufficiency, Costco is an amazing place to start!
You can pick up a lot of different kinds of trees and plants that come back every single year at the warehouse this time of year.
So, which fruit trees will you plant first? What plants do you already have? We’d love to hear what you’re growing.
Happy gardening, friend!
