the few fruit i got from my new bushes had good flavor. i have indigo gem , tundra and aurora. aurora and indigo gem had the bigger better tasting berries. they do have a unique taste. can’t wait till i get enough for some jam! i bet a mix of honey berry/ black currant should be awesome!
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Yes.I like the these a lot too.
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I just transplanted eight older bushes to a better location this fall. They do well in full sun here. I have 37 bushes total with Borealis, Tundra, Blue Moon, Giant’s Heart, Aurora, Blue Banana, Solo, Maxie, Sugar Mountain Blue, Blizzard, Beauty, Indigo Gem, Blue Belle and Berry Blue. I find them tasty right off the bush except for one kind, Blue Belle or Berry Blue, not sure which it was. That one is very astringent. So far I find Aurora the best, but not all have fruited yet. Something ate most of mine when I was away this year, even though encased in chicken wire, so maybe not birds. I’m looking forward to good harvests in the future, because my numerous raspberries are in poor shape, a virus maybe.
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I have 2 raspberry patches, and one has been in decline. I think I have a root rot problem there? Or it could be borers, two kinds, one is worse.
I like Aurora the best. so far too for honeyberries. i would like to add a couple more, but I have no room. Trying to find a spot.
Drew, I still have a whole vacant field I could plant things in, but I can’t keep up with what I have already, so hope to have the will power to just leave it a vacant field for the wildlife.
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I’m learning even without the room. I have culled a large elderberry tree and a few others things are going, some currants, I don’t need that many. But still no room for more honeyberries.
I’ve got nearly all the varieties offered from Proven Winners and the Universities of Saskatchewan and Oregon. Currently I have 14 or more in the ground, I can’t remember off the top of my head.
I’m very excited as most of the plants will be enerting their 3rd year next season while I’m planting the rest of the collection this fall.
I’ve already thrown out some of the varieties that succumb to mildew early. I’m certainly noticing some varieties are much more resistant than others. Some don’t seem to be affected until it’s appropriate for them to begin going dormant anyways.
Maxie in particular is extremely vigorous as far as vegetative growth is concerned.
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The ones I’m most excited about are Blue Banana and Honey Gin. The Berries Unlimited cultivars which are in the Sweet Plus category, They may be no good, we will see. I expect fruit next year. I do have high expectations for the Boreal series too, One is in the Sweet Plus category. That doesn’t matter, if anything like Aurora, I’m sold.
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Look forward to your,reviews!
Any updates on the varieties you have tried? I am looking to add more to my yard.
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Any really sweet varieties with the ones you tried?
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I am finally getting large honeyberry harvests. Last year I had trouble cleaning the debris from the picked berries, and our electric leaf blower was much too powerful to clean them; it blew the berries all over the lawn. So this spring I looked for the wimpiest battery-op blower I could find. I found a Hyper Tough 20v 100 cfm 130 mph blower at Walmart. Now I pick/tickle the berries off the bushes into a half of a child’s wading pool. Then I dump them into a large rectangular storage tub and “stir” around in them with the airflow from the blower. It works great. One person can do it. Thanks to Bernis at HoneyberryUSA for the idea. See her video on their site. So far I have harvested six gallons, which is just a drop in the bucket.
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Any follow-up on Great Northern Berries?
A decade ago I got to taste Blue Moon and Blue Velvet. They tasted OK enough that
I have bought others since.
Aurora looks to be a winner.
And I have 4 new cultivars (to me) being shipped right now from One Green world…Taka, Tana, Giants Heart and Honeybee.
This should round out my current collection of Beauty, Beast, Aurora, Czech 17, and willa.
Have tried Indigo G and Indigo Treat and Tundra and found them to taste good enough, but they had other issues and died in a couple seasons on me.
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I’m not impressed with any of the cultivars from Berries unlimited. Small fruit and low production. On the other hand dr Thompsons and the Canadian cultivars are impressive overall. Not perfect but decent flavor, good size, and good production for me at least.
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all the boreals and strawberry sensation gave me some berries this spring. its only their 1st year but aurora still beats them all flavor wise. production, we’ll see. had a huge harvest on my oldest aurora this year. plan to add more as im rooting cuttings of them. my other older aurora that the voles ate to the ground, came back to almost the same size it was before. all in a 3 month timespan.
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This year freezes (But mostly lack of pollinators) kept me from getting any Aurora crop.
The half dozen berries from hand pollination the birds stole. I’m afraid the early varieties may rarely crop here. But time will tell. I’ve now got the earliest and the latest and several between.
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Aurora is no doubt the best. I was thinking of growing out seeds.
I only took a couple photos this year. This is either Solo or Maxie. I forget which is which? Impressive plant though!
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Verry nice looking plants. I’ve seen those two offered by Monrovia available for sale at garden centers…but chose to pass on them at the time.
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These are Thompson cultivars. Others out there now too. I have a third one I got from a member here. He bought it directly from Thompson quite awhile ago. It is just as impressive as these. It is an unnamed cultivar. These are Japanese cultivars so later ripening than the Russian types.
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