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Purvis Nursery & Orchard

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1568 Hill Road
Homedale, ID 83678

(208) 407-6781
Sells on-site
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History

Purvis Nursery & Orchard was founded in April 2008, shortly after owner, Robert Purvis, moved to Idaho from Minnesota.

About Bob

Since 1985, Robert Purvis has taught grafting and pruning classes for the general public in Alaska, Washington, Minnesota, and now Idaho and also does orchard consulting for homeowners and top grafting for commercial growers. Once the orchard reached its 4th leaf and came into production, Purvis Nursery and Orchard began selling fruit to the general public, concentrating on more unique cultivars introduced by the University of Minnesota, the USDA-ARS and the New Jersey apricot-breeding program rather than the more commonly available commercial cultivars.

The Nursery

The purpose of the nursery is to graft, grow, and sell trees of hard-to-find fruit cultivars (primarily apricot but also apple, pear, plum and cherry) that will survive and ripen in USDA Zones 2-6, for growers in the northern tier of states.

The Orchard

The Purvis orchard is comprised of approximately 1.5 acres and is being used as a germplasm repository for fruit cultivars for the north country and western Mountain states, as well to test the fruit cultivars’ suitability for the Treasure Valley. Purvis Nursery and Orchard offers scionwood of these cultivars to backyard fruit growers and also sells hard-to-find rootstocks in retail quantities.

8C-28-27, from British Columbia, is a Red Delicious x Golden Delicious cross that keeps well and has pear-like flavor notes beneath its sweetness
After 14 seasons, the Hudar pear tree has lots of fruiting spurs
Checking for 2021 growth on Hudar, an early-ripening, cold hardy pear from upstate NY
Crisp and sweet, KinderCrisp was discovered in central Minnesota.
Douglas pears ripen late and can well. The tree has proven immune to the deadly pear disease, fire blight, under Idaho conditions.
Prairie Spy, shown here, is an outstanding cooking apple from Minnesota, but it also eats well
Seckel pears are small but intensely sweet
Shizuka, a Golden Delicious x Indo cross from Japan, is one of the largest apples we grow
The ‘Golden Giant’ apricot was re-discovered and re-introduced to the nursery trade by Bob Purvis in 2009
These Vermont Beauty pears proved very popular at the 2021 Nampa Farmers’ Market
To prevent girdling, Bob loosens the wire tie of a metal tag on a young Jerseycot tree.
Wow, this late-ripening windfall plum still tastes good!
Gold Rush apples, ready to harvest at Purvis Nursery & Orchard. This apple is tart when picked but mellows up after a month in storage and can keep until Spring.
Honeysweet pears ripen about September 5 in SW Idaho. A self-fruitful seedling of Seckel, the name accurately describes its sweet flavor.
Minnesota 1628 was never named by the University of Minnesota but is an outstanding sweet, long keeping eating apple ripening early October in Idaho

Products

Trees and fruits – apples, apricots, cherries (sweet/tart), peaches, pears, plums, raspberries