*charch* re: blueberries

terpbrideinnc

I'm pretty sure I'm going to plant some blueberry bushes in my backyard, if I can get around to it in the next couple weeks.  I was researching them a little bit and was just curious which varieties you got and how you went about planting. I read that you should get multiple varieties for cross- pollenization and was contemplating between the varieties of Rabbiteye or Highbush. Thoughts on either? I saw that the Rabbiteye are supposed to be heartier but that Highbush are more of the traditional plant. How did you go about planting? I was planning to dig a hole, put in the plant, and fill with a a 1:1 mixture of soil and peat moss . What did you do? The area I'm planning to plant usually has some pine needle covering and some moss growth so I think that it's probably pretty acidic, but I didn't really think ahead to have it tested. How many did you plant? TIA for any of your trial & error info

uncharch7

in all honesty, i decided to plant blueberries when i saw the plants on sale last year and was doing a mystery shop so i didn't pay for my first one .  after that i did the research, learned about cross-pollination and ended up with 3 bushes.  they're under a pine tree because that's the only place i had to put them and i had very few berries the first year.  i'm hoping they'll produce more this year.

i can't even tell you what varieties i have, but i can find out when i go out later to check on my seedlings.  i dug a hole, put a little peat in since the soil was pretty much clay, and went from there.  i covered the bases with the pine needles that were already on the ground, then watered well for the first couple weeks.

they've been super low maintenance and i was excited to see all 3 start to get leaves this year, part of one of the bushes died off last year but it wasn't a great bush to begin with when i bought it.

i'm sorry i'm not much help, but GL to you!

terpbrideinnc

No problem, I was just curious. How awesome that you scored a free plant!  I feel like I have so much to learn as far as growing things so I figured I'd see if you had any advice. Sounds like your plant location is similar to mine, so I'm glad to hear they are doing well.

krispychikin

figured I'd hop in since DH just ordered three bushes last week for us to plant.  We're planting them on one side of our house that gets sun half the day and shade the other half:

we got two rabbiteye and one highbush (he talked to someone at a nursery and they recommended the following varieties for the Triangle area:

 Legacy,Tifblue, Powder Blue, O'Neal, Premier, and Powderblue

 We ordered the last three (I think O'neal and Premier are the rabbiteye and powderblue the highbush)

He got them from this nursery: http://www.danfinch.com/

And he got a lot of info re: blueberries from this NC extension site:  http://www.ces.ncsu.edu/depts/hort/hil/hil-8207.html

HTH!  Obviously - we haven't had them planted yet so I can't say how well they'll do this year!

terpbrideinnc

Yes, I've seen that article, it was very helpful. The spacing between plants seemed a little further apart than I'd seen elsewhere, though, I had seen 2.5 feet in other articles. I'll probably just go w/ the 5 ft recommended thought. Thanks for the recs on the varieties, I really appreciate it!!

uncharch7

FWIW mine are 2.5' apart, i can't imagine any issues with that.

one thing you'll want to watch closely for is birds; i had to invest in some netting because the few berries i did have got eaten up!

terpbrideinnc

Oh bummer, I was worried about the birds. That's not too bad, though, b/c they'll be nearly against my fenceline so I can use that to partly drape the net over the plants. Yeah, I was thinking 2.5' wouldn't be too much of a problem b/c that's how I've always seen them when I went blueberry picking. I dunno, I need to go figure out exactly where I want them.