I spent many of my formative summers picking huckleberries on the high hillsides around priest lake Idaho. Love those little berries. They are hard to beat over ice cream or in a milk shake.
Pick one, eat one, and so forth.
When I planted 3 Pink Lemonades I was Z5 but now am Z6 - The bushes themselves are thriving but production is very low due to no compatible Rabbiteye pollinators
So far, here are all the blueberries that I have. I haven’t logged the new ones from hartmanns yet but except for 1 plant that lost tags, everything is labeled:
Blueberry
[ ] Powderblue - ![]()
[ ] Brightwell - ![]()
[ ] BlueRay - nhb
[ ] Sweetheart x3 - hb
[ ] Patriot - nhb
[ ] Darrow x2 - hb
[ ] Liberty - nhb
[ ] Draper x6 - hb
[ ] Toro x4 - hb
[ ] Spartan - hb
[ ] Razz - nhb
[ ] Bluejay - hb
[ ] Pink popcorn - nhb
[ ] Pink lemonade x4 - ![]()
[ ] Chandler x3 - high bush
[ ] Jersey?? - nhb
[ ] O’Neal - shb
[ ] Sweetcrisp x4 - shb
[ ] Florida rose x4 ![]()
[ ] Springhigh - shb
[ ] Windsor - shb
[ ] Kabluey x4 - nhb
[ ] Talisman - nhb
[ ] Pearl - shb
[ ] Hannah’s choice - nhb
[ ] Columbus - ![]()
[ ] Top shelf x6 - nhb
[ ] Bonus x2 - hb
[ ] Nocturne
[ ] Red huckleberry x2
[ ] Krewer x3
[ ] Titan x3
[ ] Vernon
[ ] Peach sorbet
[ ] Last call
[ ] Clockwork x4
[ ] Kestrel x2
[ ] Cara’s Choice
[ ] Gumbo
I’ll update them throughout the season if anyone is interested.
I’ve noticed Titan and Krewer are very sensitive to me alkaline soils. I’ve had multiple of them die on me in Colorado but my new ones are thriving.
So far this year, I’ve only lost 1 Draper and it may have been dying to begin with when i got it so…
I’ve let Last call and Clockwork dry out a few times and they seem more drought resistant than my other ones.
Blue ribbon drinks a lot more than any other variety from my observations this year with them being in the same size pot with similar root mass as some others but I’ve had to double water some of them on hot days. I haven’t had to do that with any other Blueberry varieties.
Blue ribbon is also the most productive alongside Pink Popcorn but my Pink Popcorn is over 10 years old so it’s a ton bigger. I suspect that when blue ribbons get that age, they’ll surpass everyone on productivity.
Clockwork’s calyx really sets it apart from everyone else lol. Same with Florida rose but my Florida rose is only 2 years old from tissue culture so i suspect they would act a little different for a few years.
There’s 2 plants that random sawflies really like but i can’t remember which. I think one was Sweetheart.
I highly doubt my Sweetcrisp from plant me green is Sweetcrisp but I’ll find out this year. All 3 are not very productive on comparison to others but i got 2 near end of season last year and the other one was mid season. Mid season Sweetcrisp is literally only putting out maybe 20 flowers on such a huge plant. I fertilize them all the same. Next year will be the year to know if this is normal for them.
Kestrel has not put out ANY berries last year or this year
I’m wondering if they’re even Blueberry plants at this moment or mock blueberry plants
literally my absolute least productive and i drove all the way to Oregon to pick two up
Also i found out a lot of the blueberries I’ve been seeing in Costco are Premier variety.
My premier died in Colorado and i haven’t replaced it since i found out that the majority of unlabeled blueberries i was buying from the store was premier. Premier holds up in shipping and mechanical harvest well but kind of bland in comparison to all the other varieties.
Oz Blu… i hope they release it in the US one day because these berries are huge and flavorful.
I wasn’t going to plant blueberries other than a couple wild lowbush and wild black huckleberries (gaylussacia baccata) in pots since I didn’t want to mess with altering my soil ph. Somehow I ended up with 8 cultivars in pots on my deck. I have: Duke, Patriot, Blueray, Northland, Darrow, Pink Popcorn, Cabernet Splash, and Burgundy. There’s room for a few more without getting crowded, but I don’t have anything in particular I want at the moment. I’ll be keeping an eye on the blueberry threads though, in case I see something I might want to add later.
Cabernet Splash is a really pretty plant, I got this one simply because of the color. I like oddities like that. A bunch of my veggies are purple varieties.
I tried draper a few years ago and ended up adding a bunch more. They’re sweet with a little bit of acid, some were bigger than the size of Chandler berries and crispy!
How is northland? I just got that one. Enticed by the wild
I love how you use the bunny emoji to signify bunny damage/death ![]()
I thought it’s because they’re rabbit eye varieties
Ohhh whoops
In my experience, sun and heat are totally fine if not preferred in my area. I’ve struggled with blueberries in the past, but cracked the code last spring.
Big pots…I’m talking 20 gal
Drill five to six 3” holes in the bottom.
Fill with 50:50 peat moss and pine nuggets/bark. Maybe a shovel or two of you local soil/compost for them good microbes.
Bury the whole pot so the top is at ground level.
Pop in your blueberry.
Mulch with 2-3” of pine nugs.
Keep it irrigated!!! - this is the key. If they’re in the heat/sun they have to have cool moist roots.
Yeah they’re rabbiteyes haha. No death by bunny so far but they have sooo much to eat here. The only thing they’ve risked so far are my Charlotte strawberry leaves and crimson night raspberry leaves. These two seem to be the favorites.
Just scored a Bountiful Blue from lowes at half off along with another peach sorbet for half off. The bountiful was the last of itself and they both desperately need a little bit of TLC. Since they may not hit the clearance rack before getting taken, i waited a week and came back and asked during closing if they’ll be able to discount it for me for looking sad and they did!! Absolutely love Lowes
home depot would just toss it out if you let them know. Happened to me in the past, instead of discounting it, home depot would rather just toss them and file for a loss ![]()
even if it can be saved.
Anyways, yeah,
Lowes, 2 more blewb plants today
Also just realized the reason why kestral has no berries… they flowered at the very first breath of 60 degrees in February
when no pollinators were around.
If they do it again, may only be good for Florida or places where pollinators are always around
This is really smart and would have been a much easier idea for me than what I did this spring when I moved mine and created a whole mounded row with pine nugget/native clay/little compost/espoma sulfur fertilized with alfalfa and kelp. Mine are doing OK, slow growing and leaves on some look like pH still isn’t there and not able to access nutrients. Your in-ground soilless approach insulates the roots, which is really smart. I might have to switch to this next year. Though, the thought of redoing the blueberries a third time is nauseating.
You can stick some logs in ground and put the blueberries on top of it as well.
Over here where i am, native huckleberries grow on top of old stumps.
My plan is to dig a trench, put a log in each, then some acidic potting mix or garden soil with soil acidifier, and then plant my berries on top of all of that. Also mine will be in raised beds made of the trees turned into logs.
Don’t know if i want to do something like
Draper - Draper - Draper - Blue ribbon - blue ribbon - blue ribbon
Or something like Draper - Ribbon - Top Shelf - Draper - Ribbon - Top Shelf…
Or do i wanna put the short ones with the tall ones ![]()
so many options… or short with short…
@Eme Well, probably the same amount of digging, but the PH is perfect and won’t leech out as fast as just amending the native soil.
I’ve done soil tests year after and no amount of amending with any soil acidification works long term in my area.
Elizabeth and Cara’s Choice are the first two to show a few ripening berries this year. In my 7B area, I find many northern highbush cultivars ripening closely together and not as spread out as they do in colder areas. Not pictured I also had my first ripe Kabluey today which was very tasty. It is a young plant so I’ll only get a handful from it, but my main row (Blueray, Elizabeth, Herbert, Cara’s Choice and Hannah’s Choice) went from pots to the ground 2 years ago and are sizing up nicely and should have at least a few pounds each.
Elizabeth
Cara’s Choice
I better get the structure up for a net over this row or these are all just going to disappear inside the birds.
Anyone got any tips for starting blueberries/Vacciniums from seeds? I bought a few packs of seeds for various native(ish) Vacciniums and was just looking for pointers.



