Five hundred acres in Central Texas. We grow the trees, we grade them, and they come to you direct from the grower. That is the whole difference.
Most of the trees sold online in this country have never been near the company selling them. An order goes in, a broker forwards it to a wholesale nursery two states away, the nursery pulls whatever is closest to the description, and a box turns up. Nobody in that chain has looked at your tree. That is why the reviews all say the same thing: it arrived far smaller than the photos.
We are on the other end of that. The trees are in our ground, we grade them ourselves against the spec printed on the page, and we put them in the box. There are two ways a tree reaches you. A 3-gallon tree ships nationally in a box, and a 15-gallon tree or anything larger goes on our truck for Texas delivery or you pick it up here at the ranch. The truck stock is quoted, not bought online.
What growing it ourselves actually changes
1. The size on the page is the size in the box
Every product page carries a "What actually ships" block. Height measured from the soil line, caliper measured 6 inches up, container size, root form, and how it is packed. Those are not aspirational numbers. They are the numbers we grade against on the loading dock, and if a tree misses them it does not go in a box. The boxed tree is the small end of what we grow. A 3-gallon container forces a 48 by 12 by 12 box, so what ships is a 3 to 5 ft tree with caliper under one inch. A 7-gallon also boxes. We have not graded a live shipment yet, so we do not post a transit time.
We put our money behind it: measure your tree against that block on the day it arrives. If it misses, we refund you in full and you keep the tree. A broker cannot make that promise, because a broker does not know what is in the box either.
2. We can tell you not to buy the tree
A broker's incentive is to move whatever is in the warehouse. Ours is to sell you a tree that is still alive in ten years, because that is the customer who buys four more and tells his neighbour.
So the sawtooth oak page, our best seller, says in plain type that it is an East Asian species and not a Texas native, and it points you at chinquapin oak instead if native status is what you are after. It also says the first reliable acorn crop is typically 5 to 8 years. The Lacey oak page says the tree is genuinely slow and that a 3-gallon is a ten-year commitment. The Mexican sycamore page says it drops leaves in the box. The mountain laurel page says the seeds are toxic if a child chews one.
None of that copy helps us close a sale today. All of it is why you can trust the rest of the page.
3. Trees go in the ground in the right season
Our field-grown Texas stock ships during the dormant season, October 15 to December 15 for most species, November 1 to January 31 for the ones that resent being moved while they are pushing growth. That is a hold, not a delay, and we will not sell you a way around it.
Texas Arbor Day is the first Friday in November, not in April, because fall is when a tree should go in the ground in this state. A tree that lands on your driveway in July is a tree you will replace. Plenty of online sellers run no seasonal gate at all, their zone tool is a recommendation, not a rule, and that single decision is where most of their heat-death complaints come from.
4. The big trees go by truck
Because we grow in Texas, we can put a 15-gallon Shumard oak on a pallet and deliver it anywhere in the state. A tree that size does not fit a carton, so it is not a parcel order. It is Texas delivery or ranch pickup, quoted by the load. Almost no online nursery ships a tree that size, because parcel carriers make it impossible: across one online catalogue of 6,394 variants, exactly one exceeds nine feet. Growing here and driving it ourselves is what makes the Ranch Grade possible.
What we grow, and what we do not pretend to
The catalogue is deliberately narrow: Texas natives and Texas-adapted species that will still be alive in a Central Texas August. Cedar elm, chinquapin oak, Texas red oak, Lacey oak, Texas mountain laurel, yaupon holly, possumhaw, anacacho orchid tree. Where a tree in our catalogue is adapted rather than native, Mexican sycamore, Monterrey oak. We say so on the page in bold type, because the Texas native-plant audience checks, and they are right to.
We do not sell Thuja Green Giant. It is the single best-selling privacy tree online and it is a poor performer in this heat. We sell yaupon holly instead, which is native, evergreen, takes sun or deep shade, and closes into a solid screen in about four years at 6 to 8 ft on-centre.
Come see it
If you are buying enough trees that a photograph is not sufficient, come and walk the rows. We will show you the block your trees are coming out of, and you can look at the 15-gallon stock before you take it on the truck. We are at 200 Windermere Rd, San Marcos. Email hello@alreadygrown.com and we will find a morning.