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Growing Blueberries

This attractive shrub and delicious superfood is easy to grow if you follow these steps

Fine Gardening - Issue 152

Everyone I know goes gaga for blueberries (Vaccinium spp. and cvs., USDA Hardiness Zones 3–9). Whether it’s because they think the plants make attractive additions to the landscape (due to their plethora of spring flowers and excellent fall color) or because they swoon over fruit that’s delicious and nutritious, it’s hard to find a gardener who wouldn’t love to plant a blueberry in their beds. But, although easy to grow once established, getting blueberries off to the right start with proper planting and fertilizing is vital to ensure a plentiful harvest.

Test the soil and adjust the pH to provide the proper environment

Sometimes a pretty leaf color isn’t a good thing. If your soil isn’t acidic enough, your plants will be iron deficient and turn a bright yellow. Photo: Danielle Sherry

If ever there were a time when a soil test was essential, this is it. If you don’t already know the properties of the bed that you’ll be planting into, then you will need to do a soil analysis before you plant your berry bushes. Blueberries need an acidic soil with an ideal pH between 4.5 and 5.2. If your soil pH is too high, your plants will be iron deficient, causing the foliage to turn yellow between the veins. This deficiency can eventually kill your plants. There are a few ways to acidify sweet soil. You can spread 2 to 3 ounces of fine ground sulfur (per bush) over the soil and scratch it in. This method will work, although it will typically take at least a year for this amendment to have any effect on your soil’s pH. To decrease the pH fast, use moist peat moss to backfill your planting hole. This quickly raises the acidity, allowing you to have a healthy and productive first season.

highbush
There’s a reason highbush types are the favorites. Due to their white bell-shaped flowers and vaselike structure, they are ornamental plants that produce edible fruits. Photo: Frank Clarkson

HIGHBUSH
Photo: Frank Clarkson

Planting times for blueberries vary depending on where you live. If you live in a milder section of the country (Zones 7–9), you can plant in spring or fall. Planting too late in the season in colder zones (Zones 3–6) isn’t ideal because the plants will struggle to get established before the ground freezes, so spring is your best option. The type of blueberry you plant will also be dictated by where you live. Highbush blueberries are the most popular kind for home gardens because they are good-looking, low-care, and produce the largest amount of berries. Each highbush blueberry plant should be spaced 5 to 6 feet apart in full sun to partial shade. If, however, you’d like to create a hedge out of your bushes, only space them 3 feet apart.

Highbush
Highbush. Photo: Ann Stratton

Lowbush
Lowbush. Photo: courtesy of Monrovia

Most blueberries are hardy to –20°F, but each variety has a winter-chilling requirement—or the amount of time that the plant must be dormant. This is measured in the number of days that the plants endure temperatures under 45°F. When selecting your bushes, be sure you investigate their chilling requirement and match that with your locale. Also, remember to buy two or more plants of the same type—but a different cultivar—because cross-pollination increases the crop size.

Highbush
Zones 3–7

The most common blueberry bush is grown by the home gardener because it produces the largest volume of fruit, high bushes mature into a manageable 5 to 6 foot tall and wide shrub. There are northern and southern highbush blueberries, each requiring a different amount of cold to produce berries (referred to as “low-chill” and ”high-chill”). Highbush varieties are generally categorized by when their fruit ripens; early, mid, or late-season.

Lowbush
Zones 2–8

Also known as “wild” blueberries, these compact plants (2 feet tall and wide) bear smaller-size fruit. You can still expect decent harvests from these plants and the tiny berries pack a more flavorful punch than other blueberries making them ideal for cooking and baking. These plants get tiny white flowers in spring and maroon foliage in fall (pictured) in northern zones.

Half-high
Half-high. Photo: Danielle Sherry

Pink Lemonade
Pink Lemonade. Photo: courtesy of Great Garden Plants

Half-highs
Zones 3–7

These are hybrid bushes whose size is between a high and lowbush blueberry, averaging around 3 to 4 feet tall and wide. They are hardy to all but the northernmost and southernmost sections of the country. The plants produce medium-size berries.

Pink Lemonade
Zones 4–8

This highbush blueberry grows approximately 5 feet tall and wide. As the name suggests, the fruit is bright pink when ripe, but it has the same flavor as a regular blueberry. The flowers on these bushes are light pink, too, as opposed to the white of traditional types. In fall, the foliage turns red.

 

Dig, flood, mulch, and feed for the best results

First you’ll need to dig a proper planting hole and then backfill only halfway.
First, dig a proper planting hole and backfill only halfway. Photo: Danielle Sherry

Next, flood the hole with water to force out any air pockets.
Next, flood the hole with water to force out any air pockets. Photo: Danielle Sherry

A few weeks after applying mulch, sprinkle a ring of fertilizer around the plant to get it off to the best start.
A few weeks after applying mulch, sprinkle a ring of fertilizer around the plant to get it off to the best start. Photo: Danielle Sherry

The planting process starts with a hole twice as wide and just as deep as the containerized plant. I then place the plant into the hole and partially back-fill (using moistened peat moss if needed for pH). Next, I water in thoroughly—essentially flooding the hole. Allow the water to seep in completely before you finish back-filling. This forces out any air pockets around the plant, which could lead to poor root development. Finish things off by applying a 3- to 4-inch layer of organic mulch around the base of the plant and extending out at least 2 to 3 feet in all directions. Blueberries are shallow-rooted and despise drying out, so mulch helps keep the moisture consistent around the plants. Weeds compete for moisture, too, so mulch also helps to keep them at bay.

I typically don’t fertilize my plants until two or three weeks after planting—or whenever I remember. Just like other acid-loving plants such as rhododendrons (Rhododendron spp. and cvs., Zones 3–9), blueberries like to be fed with fertilizers specially formulated for their tastes, although this isn’t essential. I like to apply a ring of fertilizer a foot away from the crown of the plants. Scratch the fertilizer into the soil and then give the plants a healthy dose of water. In the first year of planting, I make sure that the plants stay moist by using a soaker hose. If the rain stops for a week or more, I turn the hose on and give the plants a drink.

If all goes right, I start harvesting a small number of berries within the first year of planting. It may not be enough to fill the freezer at first, but by the second or third year, I’m practically begging my family members to take plastic bags of berries home.


Photo: Frank Clarkson

Tip: Skip bareroot plants

Sometimes people will ask me about bareroot plants that you’ll occasionally see at the nursery or get through mail order. I have never had much success with these, and it generally takes a few years for the plants to size up and start fruiting. As one farmer friend put it to me, “Life is too short to waste time on finicky blueberry bushes.”

Previous: How to Grow Raspberries Next: How to Plant Blueberries
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Comments

  1. jeannetrimble 07/31/2014

    I purchased 3 patio blueberry bushes this spring through a mail order company. They were small and are growing well. I know the soil has to be acidic and that seems to be fine. Does anyone know if I will get fruit this fall? They are in large pots. I am planning on overwintering them in my hobby greenhouse where they will chill off as all bushes need to but because they are in pots, I want to protect them, from freezing. I live in Pittsburgh, PA where we had a long late freeze this year. Would appreciate any advice or tips on growing these. Thanks all! (Love this site! I never before wrote on a garden site and hope to enjoy this for a long time!)

    1. maddog23 03/11/2017

      There is a Longmont, Colorado man whom you can find online. I have a producing berry that I planted in a peatmoss bale. It usually harvests in the June/July range. I must take great care to keep my peat bale separate from the alkaline soil here in the Rocky Mountain west. I check pH regularly because even my water is alkaline-meaning to water I use a liquid iron-acid fortifier from the nursery. If you have more acid soil you will suffer less plant stress. Using a peat bale might be your best bet for preventing the frozen roots as well, but they bury these bales instead of green housing them. To protect the bushes themselves from flash freezing, I wrap them up as directed in the Longmont films.

      1. user-7008587 05/25/2017

        I live in Longmont, I've tried to plant blueberries and have failed, never gotten a single berry.who is this Longmont man?

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