What is the earliest honeyberry? Best tasting? Largest? Most Cold hardy?
I ordered a 10 pack of honeyberries from honeyberry usa! I called them today. I will post pictures very soon.
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my earliest is the 2 indigos. my fave is aurora which ripens right after the indigos. i planted a honey bee to pollinate aurora but aurora is partially self fertile and then the end of indigos bloom also pollinates aurora. the boreal series is also very good and productive. they ripen right after aurora and also cross pollinate some. my experience is the later fruiting pure jap. haskap tolerate warmer weather better but arent as productive as the earlier canadian varieties. i have maxie solo and a few strawberry sensations. id think planting them amongst your pears for some shade / wind protection would be a good thing in your enviroment.
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So I have my indigo gem and tundra mixed up (lost the tags) but I think my indigo gem wakes up and then Aurora, then tundra. The one I think is IG set way more fruit than tundra.
They all wake up towards the end of Feb, get hit by tons of frosts and are completely fine. So frost etc doesn’t bother the flowers at all for me.
They survive my swampy humid MD weather by dropping leaves by end of July or start of August and look dead after that. But come back surprisingly.
They do have shallow roots just as an fyi regarding watering needs.
The Aurora i got from HBU was awesome.
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Earliest blooming or earliest ripening?
Best tasting is Blizzard. @steveb4 likes Aurora. A ripe Aurora is hard to beat. My only complaint about Aurora is the uneven ripening. And while Aurora is one of the first to bloom, it seems to be the last to ripen.
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ill say, depending on years, aurora and blizzard are neck and neck most of the time. it could be aurora gets direct sun until about 6pm. where as blizzard gets direct from 12 till 4 then dappled till’ dark. i need to root some cuttings of it and try them in all day sun.
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No actual experience. But, as I was researching the sweetest varieties to consider this winter, Berries Unlimited told me both Blue banana and Honey beast are sweeter than Aurora and pollinating partners.
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never tried blue banana but beast are pretty good. never compared them to blizzerd. i often pick them together and mix the berries.
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This is my first year getting fruit off my small honey berries. Strawberry Sensation is my favorite regarding flavor. It also has very large berries. Beast, blizzard, and beauty are all good. I can’t say I noticed much in flavor between those three.
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The other poster might be talking about this beast here, not the beauty / blizzard / beast from Saskatoon-
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never tried any of the berries unlimited plants. i researched it awhile back and didnt see much for high praises for any of them. someone change my mind. ive had very good results form honeyberryUSA’s products so i havent looked else where.
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Many places carry honeyberries beast and beauty and many are cheaper. Like you @steveb4 i ordered from honeyberryusa anyway. Im not saying it was inexpensive , i paid $30 for one plant but i exxpect it to be worth it over time. I mentioned others carry beauty and beast and give volume discounts etc. It is only right i post those as well so everyone can make their own decisions. Many like hartmans sell great plants as well.
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my 1st. ones, indigo treat / gem came from Hartmanns. bought solo from hirts for $7 w/ free shipping. the others, when i ordered them at the time, werent available anywhere else that i knew off. im always looking for a better deal. 
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If you have the land and are ready to bulk plant hartmanns is a nice wholesaler. I want good quality plants and at first i want a mixture of 1 or 2 of each. Your honeyberry orchard skills are more mature. You might know what you want and just order 40 of them. Lets say you know you want a 10 foot honeyberry like czech 17 so you order 38 at $83.60 from hartmanns thats pretty smart shopping. Great prices and great service from hartmanns. These hartman plants are just plugs.
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im maxed
out on honeyberries. i dont need anymore and im limited on room. just to let you know, i wasnt impressed with hartmanns plants. they came to me leafed out, covered in powdery mildew. they seemed to die off the 1st summer then slowly came back the next spring.
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I’ve ordered from HBU twice and I’ve gotten great plants each time. The only 1 of 8 plants that was a bit wimpy was the sweet thing bush cherry.
I always recommend HBU to anyone getting honeyberries, I got my Aurora from them and it was big and insane root system. Other people in other posts have gotten very nice sized honeyberry plants from them as well in other threads.
Bernice is also very nice and responsive in emails.
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I used to swap plants with Mr. Hartmann about 25 years ago. Maybe he is no longer running things. He sent really good quality plants to me. I traded him some stuff. I similarly traded with several other nurseriees before they got big. Some i still trade with frequently.
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There’s also a group order for Hartman’s that runs annually and there’s plenty (like myself) who are probably interested to split an order of something if you choose to do so but don’t want 10 plants
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I’ve have a few varieties from Berries Unlimited. The plants are a decent size now and covered in blooms so I should be able to report how they rank. Honeyberryusa even carries a few of the Berries Unlimited varieties so they must be decent. Check out Blue Banana.
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ive received a few weak plants and told her about them. she took care of it by sendiing a new one and a freebie plant. why i continue to give them my bussiness and shes even on here occasionally. she messaged me once to ask if i ever planted my honeyberries in a low wet spot. i told her to plant on mounds like i do on my heavy clay.
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