Does anyone know of a reliable source for blueberry plants. I'm looking for northern highbush and need 1000-1500. I'm in the process of layout & not sure of the exact number yet. Thanks for any help, Steve
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16 years ago
Blueberry plants
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16 years ago
I cannot vouch for them, but try here. If they do not have the varieties you seek, perhaps they can help.
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16 years ago
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16 years ago
Do you have a peat bog or swamp to plant them in? What soil pH do highbush blues need?
NC seems awfully far south to grow good blueberries...
Jan in Alaska surrounded by swamps & peat bogs
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16 years ago
What??
Nah, we are surrounded by blueberry farms locally, and across the state, there are several towns that host annual blueberry festivals.
Rae
(also in NC)
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16 years ago
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16 years ago
Jan Flora expounded:
Blueberries don't need a peat bog or swamp, they hate standing water and soggy feet. Have you ever seen a pine barren? Hardly a swamp.
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16 years ago
They do need a soil that has a pH around 4.5-5.0 though to really thrive. Our soil is close to neutral so I have to amend it annually to drop the pH.
George
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16 years ago
George Shirley expounded:
Yes, they do. Our home up in Maine is in a pine barren, the land is covered naturally in lowbush blueberries. We've also got a few highbush blueberries, too, someone planted in the past. I've never measured the pH of the soil up there, but I'm sure it's around 4.5.
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16 years ago
I haven't *seen* a pine barren, but I read John McPhee's book about the NJ Pine Barrens... (Everything he writes is good, btw.)
We have a few wild blues growing around the ranch. Mostly, the bears beat me to the berries, and mostly, I'm willing to let them.
We have lots of wild highbush cranberries and lots of wild and tame currants here.
Jan
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16 years ago
I just read somewhere that blueberries thrive in the Ozarks. Is that NC? I've only been on the other side of the Mississippi River once and that was to visit cousins in CT. (New England is sure pretty!)
My ignorance about back east is appalling...
Jan
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16 years ago
Nope, not Ozarks, but we have the Appalachians aka "great smokey mountains" that we share with TN & VA. I live closer to the coast. If I remember my geography right, the Ozarks are like in Arkansas and Missouri. A small portion in Oklahoma and Kansas. But blueberries is just one of a number of crops that thrive well in NC. As I said before, there are many farms here that are devoted to blueberries. You can go five miles in 4 directions from my house and be surrounded by blueberry fields. Several of us gardeners have a few bushes at home too. I don't have any, but hope to buy a few shoots from a neighbor in time for next years harvest. There are blueberry fields scattered thru-out the whole state, from the coastal area, to the sandhills, to the mountains. Very profitable crop here.
Rae
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16 years ago
Jan Flora expounded:
Our home up in Maine is in a pine barren. We've got about 2 acres in wild blueberries. Because hubby is no longer up there fulltime we've got some invading plants to deal with this fall, he's purchased a DR Brushcutter to take things down. From what we've seen at neighbors' homes, if you mow the blueberries they seem to come back with a vengence, that's what we're hoping!
The birds do get some of them, but there's so many I get a great harvest every year....well, except for last year, when it rained for the whole spring and early summer, pollination was poor and the crop was bad basically for the whole state. We've put three beehives up there, hopefully the girls will give us a good harvest. They're not quite ready yet.
I'd love to grow currants, but we're not supposed to, they're the alternate host for some pine blight :o(
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16 years ago
Yep, the tree catalogs have warnings about white pine blight or something. I guess it's illegal in places to grow plants that will support/harbor the blight.
We don't have pine trees here. (Wish we did.) Just black spruce, white spruce, Lutz spruce (a hydrid of the two others), some birch and some cottonwoods. A couple of kinds of aspen grow about 80 miles north of here. Gotta get a couple of them...
Jan
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16 years ago
Possibly true of the Northern Highbush (Vaccinium corymbosum) but certainly not true of the Rabbiteye (V. ashei also known as V. virgatum) and some others.
Most of the commercial blueberries are hybrids (of these and other species), but will still often be divided into "southern" and "northern" varieties.
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16 years ago
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16 years ago
We've got at least 40 on our property, you're welcome to them :-) I hate them with a vengeance now after 4 years of having to rake up endless amounts of pine needles/cones and burn them and get the 'leaves' from the cones stuck in my feet or stabbed by the cones when I pick them up, same for the needles(even wearing gloves it still happens)....I want birch and oak and maple and nut trees, etc....ANYTHING BUT PINE!