thats a good idea about adding chitin. i just started using coast of maine products. they add composted lobster shells to their products so they naturally have those microbes in there. i used to have a lot of them coming to my feeders but for some reason last year i only saw a few. i hope disease or predators didn’t get them. they also help keep the mosquitos and black flies in check.
If you feed them they will come. It really worked too. it took a few years. I try to add plants beneficial insects like.
https://www.dianeseeds.com/beneficial-insects-flowers.html
In my opinion adding some of these made all the difference in the world. It took years to work, no instant gratification.
i have about 20 hybrid comfrey around the property, i chop and drop around my bushes and trees. beneficials love to hide in them. i also leave the flowers when i cut. seen bumbles, masons and hummingbirds on them. i have a long steep bank near the road that was a pain to mow so last year i sprayed it early with herbicide, waited a week and sowed a pollinator mix of native wildflowers there. it was absolutely beautiful and the neighbors all commented on how nice it looked. i also have some lupines that seed there and are expanding every year. there are a lot of perennials in that mix so they will continue to come back. i got mine on sale at TSC.
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I have to get some Lupines. I like when they come back!
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i have all kinds of small ones that come up in late may. remind me and ill dig you some. these are the new fancy colored variety i got from Johnny’s seed. they like a well drained sunny spot.
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Cool, I got a good spot for them.
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My neighbor has dozens of Rose of Sharon trees/shrubs. Those things grow like weeds and definitely attract hummingbirds.
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Some lady in northern wisconsin, Mercer Wis. all along the shoulders of the road she planted her lupine seeds. The shoulder is about 30’ wide and for a mile or so of just lupines. It’s in the woods so no cabins just a gorgeous drive. I’ll see if I can find the pictures. The only thing was I got out to take pictures then got back in the car drove about fifty foot and freaked out. I was full of ticks! I jumped back out and brushed about twenty off of me, and pulled a few out of the car too. I’m glad we survived that one.
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I couldn’t find my pictures but I was able to find them on the net.
https://www.google.com/search?q=lupines+along+hwy+in+mercer+wis.&source=lnms&tbm=isch&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjDhKvF94fgAhUH-6wKHf8RCAAQ_AUIESgE&biw=1280&bih=913#imgrc=efi18nNduBwGSM:
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I have one in my garden. I prune it almost to the ground every year, so it’s more a bush. Almost a blue flower.
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And my neighbor has at least ‘dozens’…he’d give to anyone wanting to dig them all up.
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we have wild ones everywhere here as well . they flower just as the wild strawberries ripen here in july. quite the sight along the roads in farmland. they take over old fields also. they grow in dry gravelly soil where nothing else will. i take the seed pods off of mine in the fall and sprinkle some out the window when I’m driving, were i see there isn’t some growing already. I’ve covered a lot of roads with them around here in the 10yrs I’ve been doing it. 
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they do produce a lot of seed . mine are the fancier color variety i got from johnnys seeds. I’ve given some to my neighbors and have lots of seedlings come up around the mature plants. they establish quickly but aren considered invasive even tho they’re from the west coast originally. i believe they’re nitrogen fixing as well. can never have too much flowers around.
Pollination Question: Can a highbush blueberry pollinate a rabbiteye blueberry that blooms at the same time?
I cant find an answer to this on the internet. Seems like an important thing to know for people who want to grow both.
OK I found one answer on an old Houzz topic from “Kiwinut” :Rabbiteye blueberries are hexaploid and Highbush are tetraploid, but they will cross-pollinate to some extent as long as the bloom period overlaps. Highbush will usually pollinate Rabbiteyes better than than the other way, but I would not count on it being enough. Just about all SH are now self-fertile, and the newer releases of Rabbiteyes are also self-fertile, but most older Rabbiteyes will need cross-pollination with another Rabbiteye for good fruit set and large fruit.
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It’s true that most even self fertile types benefit and have better fruit set with other plants around. Some blueberries have so many crosses. I have seen Legacy listed as a SHB and elsewhere listed as a NHB. Pink Lemonade is a cross between NHB and rabbiteye. Yet nothing seems to pollinate it well from reports I have heard of low production. I bet it needs a rabbiteye around to help. Most reports I read are from people with highbush plants.
Many rabbiteye seem to big plants with lot’s of canes. Look like awesome plants. My NHB here never grows that well. I should probably feed it more.
Short answer to your question hambone, is “NO”.
Like so many other things, there may be exceptions.
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Ha, Moose71, once upon a time I did that with dandelion seeds~
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Thanks for that answer. I’ve been searching high and low for that. I get the feeling rabbiteyes are under-appreciated. Hope to convince friends here to plant NHB, SHB and RE’s.
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The rabbiteyes seem to be best adapted to zones 7 and 8. I’ve had a little experience with them in North Carolina. I have one in KY, but almost never a berry…and when there is, it’s because of some native wild berry patches in the woods within bee flight range.
I’ve just been too busy to properly grow and crop my blueberries…most of them are in containers where I placed them when I bought them over the last 15 years. Keeping them on shady side of building, I don’t have to water/irrigate them, but production is limited. I have probably 29 different cultivars of NHB. (I also have a few honeyberries.)
Once established, Rabbiteye blueberries seem more tolerant of summer heat and dry spells for sure. But, they suffer from below zero weather…don’t have as much hardiness.
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Yeah thanks for the info. I’m sticking to northerns they work fine here. It’s ironic is I have an easier time growing figs than SHB blueberries. Who would have thought? I get hundreds of figs each year.
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