Reka set blueberries fast up on the mountain! This is only the second year for this bush to be in a raised bed here. Doesn’t she look beautiful?
Here is Ochlockonee rabbiteye. The flowers on these rabbiteyes are HUGE compared to the northern varieties I am more accustomed to observing.
Matt they both look great!
I’m in NC, too, not too far west of you, but my experience with Legacy has been very different. You may be doing some things I’m not as far as soil amendments or maybe something else accounts for the difference. Of the 7 blueberry bushes in this photo all but the 5th (counting from left to right) were planted at the same time. You can guess which of the others is the Legacy. I’m planning to try grafting it on something else this year. I had a couple other Legacy bushes, too, but pitiful as it is, especially in comparison to the adjacent rabbiteyes, this is by far the best looking and most successful of my attempts at growing Legacy here.
Easy to spot the Legacy! Grafting some to a RE may work great
My first attempt growing SHB was a total failure so I spent a lot more time with soil prep and amendments this time. I applied sulfur until the PH was about 4.0 along with about 5 gal of peat moss and ground pine bark to each hole.
Even after the prep and amendments, my SHB are a lot more sensitive to too much or too little moisture and do not compete well against grass or weeds but Legacy grows better than the other SHB I have tried.
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My climate and soil are not well suited to growing SHB and I spend a lot of time making then grow. This only works because they allow me to start selling blueberries in early June rather than early July.
I saw about 5 acres of great looking SHB growing in red clay soil in the Pilot Mountain area which may be close to you. I’m not sure how he does it, but I believe he has a lot of experience growing SHB in Flordia.
Have you thought about grafting blueberries yourself, maybe onto sparkleberry? I don’t think they’re grafted, but there’s a you-pick blueberry operation – I think the original owners have since died – just off I-77, at the Hwy 21/Arlington exit south of Elkin, where all the bushes have been pruned to a single stem with all the branching starting 2-3’ off the ground. It makes for pretty easy picking, and I guess pretty easy mowing, too. I should take a picture next time I’m passing by, although I don’t know how well it’s been maintained the last few years.
Has anybody bought Sweetcrisp from Florida Hill Nursery? I’m thinking about ordering a Sweetcrisp from them. Want to make sure they sell the true variety. I’m going to grow it in a pot.
I’ll probably never buy from them again.The guy didn’t even own up to it,that he sold me the wrong plants.
Maybe wait til Just Fruits has some or do a search for a reputable nursery. bb
Good to know. I’ll hold off.
I grew it in a pot for 4 years and it always came out of dormancy too early and fruit buds froze and died every year. It was outside, so I could not figure out how to get it to work. So I pulled it. I gave it 4 seasons. I got tired of caring for an unproductive plant. It’s just too cold here and too short a season to make it work here. Maybe in ground it would have done better. But all other potted blueberries did fine. In the 4 year I never even got one berry. If kept inside it could work, I was not to fuss over it that much.
Do you think it would survive our winter in ground? It could go down to 0 here.
Yeah it’s get’s down to double digit negative numbers here. Our low this year so far was -3F the other day. The problem wasn’t hardiness, it was that it would start growing in February. and suffer damage. Once growing all hardiness is lost. If we had a 40F day in February, and we often do, it comes out of dormancy. I didn’t actually pull it, it died the last year from overwhelming freeze damage after a warm February day. I think in Florida it fruits in March.
So if you brought it in and grew inside till temps got better it would fruit. Some have grown in zone 8. You are warmer so it may work there. Here in 6a/5b it just would not work without extreme measures.
I got some from Florida Hill and they were true to type the year I bought them. They are very small, with a root ball the size of the small six pack tomatoes are grown in.
My sweetcrisp are in full bloom. I do not know if I have any pollinators out since we are having a cold snap, with night time temperatures in low 30’s. Like all southern highbush in this part of Texas, they bloom about a month before rabbiteye blueberries. Once they fruit they can take slightly below average temperatures, not sure how low. I am in zone 9a.
Gary that is interesting, none of my blueberries, including my Sweetcrisp are blooming yet, and I am not that far from you on the 8b/9a line in western Louisiana.
Mine are in 25 to 30 gallon containers. That may make them bloom a little sooner. I also have a tropic snow peach in a container that is bloomed and leaved out. Some of the inground trees are starting to leave out also. It has been another strange year.
Waking up an old thread:
It appears that the ‘Sweet Crisp’ I got from plantmegreen.com was incorrectly labeled. (Thanks @Bradybb for the identification. ) They also appear to have sent me a wrong ‘Star’.
I would now put this nursery in the Do not buy from’ category. The plants are however healthy and very vigorous.
@fruitnut, @Bradybb
Does that look like sweet crisp? I’ve spent some money already elsewhere and received the wrong varieties.
The picture that Southern Berries USA is using,isn’t Sweetcrisp.They might have been brought up in a discussion before.Notice their description is Rabbiteye and not Southern Highbush.
Brady is correct in what he mentioned. In addition Sun joined 15 minutes before posting so I think this is spam. Plus the writeup about Sweetcrisp is awful and misleading. It doesn’t mention the best features of SC and recommends pollinators that will bloom too late. Sweetcrisp does need pollination to set fruit. Southern Berries is wrong on all fronts. The posting should probably be removed. They’re likely to sell you any random plant as SC.
If Sun wants to refute any of this maybe I’d listen. But I doubt he’ll return ever.
I got 4 tiny SC plants from a seller on Amazon (Hello Organic) back in 2017. About 2.5 inch tall. Very small plants. Luckily all four have survived. 4 years later, they are about 3’ to 4’ tall. Fruits are very sweet and very firm, so I do believe they are Sweetcrisp BB.
There was a guy on Garden Web,that brought up that company and the Sweetcrisp they were selling.I already had two real McCoy’s,but bought a few,to see for sure.
They haven’t produced yet,so still uncertain.Your fruit pictured,look like they are.
