Thank you all, TheGrog, Fusion_power and BlueBerry!
These are very good info. I will try a few varieties this year for the last time to see if they will work as good as Sunshine Blue in my yard.
I added peat moss when planting my BB. They grew fine during the first year. But they start declining the second year. I think the spots are too sunny. I did not water them much. They couldn’t take that much heat without a lot of water. So I think a drought / heat tolerant BB would be a potential good match.
Also I heard that once a BB is heat stressed, it will take 3 years for it to recover. Is it true. If so, I might toss the existing ones out and plant a few new ones.
If you have any questions I’m in 7a too … Long Island … growing about 30 high bush blueberries. blue crop is one we share in common does good here my plant are on they’re 3rd year looking for a big harvest this year
I’m very late to the party and too late for you this year, but here’s advice I got from this forum. I don’t think it was mentioned up thread, but I just kind of skimmed it. It’s not earth shattering, but it’s still good and maybe will help someone else:
Get a plants with a variety of ripening times…early season/mid/late season, so you spread out the harvest and don’t go insane picking 5 ripe bushes over a two week period and then have nothing!. Also, plant them in order of ripening so you can just move your netting from bush to bush if you don’t have enough to cover them all.
As far as ripening goes, you have to wait until they are nearly black to get full flavor. You can only get that type of ripeness at home. At a pick your own place, all the berries get picked long before they are dead ripe. I heard author and grower Lee Reich in a podcast saying that you know when the berries are dead ripe when you lightly brush your fingers over the berries and they fall off! Don’t try to pull them, just brush them!
Rabbiteye Blueberries can do well on red clay and are often grown on red clay in the piedmont.
My Rabbiteye with only a little peat moss added to the hole and bark mulch on top grow much better than Southern Highbush with large amounts of amendments planted on my best soil.
I’m in NC zone 7B. Most of the soil around me is red clay but my farm is not.
Thanks, BlueBerry!
Is Brightwell much better than others? If so, I will get it as well.
Otherwise, I am thinking to get the following 4:
Krewer, early season
Titan, not sure the harvest season, but ISON recommend planting it with Krewer.
Premier: early to mid season
Powderblue: mid - late season.
This way the harvest seasons are extended. Is it a good plan?
Ison’s has a bunch more experience with the Rabbiteye blueberries than I do…and you have DiMeo Farms in Hammonton, NJ if you want to pick their brains on NHB.
Some things are trial and error…like trying to grow carrots in Florida…not so successfully.
So, I’ll leave off on trying to pick which for you to plant in Northern Virginia.
As for Sunshine Blue, if I had listened to the advice that it was for the South (only)….I would never have found out it’s a great berry in Kentucky.
In a residential setting (as in planting a few blueberries in a raised flower bed instead of rows of them out in a field commercially) I’m pretty sure I could amend the soil, plant in partial shade, use a water hose…whatever it took if I had the time…and get any of them to grow and produce.
Ditto.
I bought Sunshine Blue without knowing anything about it either. But luckily it worked out very well. I researched and chose Bluecrop and Elliot because I thought they were perfect fits to my yard, but unfortunately no. I think trial and error is the best advice when talking about growing fruits.
Blueberry Trials at Upper Marlboro, Maryland by U of Md:
@NoVA This should give you a good idea re varieties and your climate. Upper Marlboro is basically worn out tobacco soil
Edible Landscaping, Afton, Va, last year had four or five rabbiteyes for sale, like Yadkin and others, that no longer show up on their website. They have grown rabbiteyes zone 7 for years so I would phone them for advice.
Excellent! Thanks!
Exactly what I have been looking for! Just wish they had tried more cultivars.
I will include brightwell on my list too.
Blue crop is a poor performer as indicated by this report. That is the same result that I found out.
Interesting to read that Premier is early-mid season. I got rid of my Premier because they were so much later than my other berries. I was sick of picking blueberries before my Premier began to ripen.
Krewer, Titan, and Vernon are in the huge berry category. I have plants of all three, but they have not yet fruited. I love Britewell because it has a sweet flavor not found in most Rabbiteye types.
I received what was supposed to be 5 blueberry plants from Finch 2 days ago. When I prepared them to plant yesterday, one of the 5 year old Yadkins turned out to be 3 plants growing so close together that they were sold as a single plant. I wound up with 2 extra plants which got set out in their own spot. I’m up to 29 blueberry plants now.
Vernon
Titan
Krewer
Yadkin
O’neal
Star
Blueray
Brightwell
Blue Ambrosia (a better homes and gardens rename)
plus 5 or 6 others that are unnamed.
