Moving a Blueberry

Not only do blueberries provide fruit, but they are also beautiful plants with great stem colour, delicate white flowers and stunning foliage in the autumn, when the leaves change colour into a range of delightful autumnal shades.

We have two blueberry plants in the garden. The first one I got was bought in the supermarket a couple of years ago. I knew that they required acidic soil conditions but I did not know the soil pH in our garden. I bought the plant anyway. I measured the pH of the soil in our garden and it was very mildly acidic so i decided to plant it into the soil with a blackcurrant and redcurrant plant. 

Copyright Robert Widdowson 2016

A close up of  one of our two blueberry cultivars

A little while after, my mother gave me another Blueberry as they fruit best when you have two different cultivars. I kept this one in the container it came in to compare the success of both my plants. The one in the container has produced new growth, flowered and produced  a few berries too. The plant that I put in the soil has survived but has not grown, flowered or fruited.

A video of me moving and repotting our blueberry plants

I decided that my experiment was conclusive and for whatever reason; soil pH, the clay or drainage, the cultivar I planted in the soil had done much worse than the one I had left in the pot. I dug up my first plant and potted both of them into new pots as the newer blueberry in the pot had been in there for a while and I decided it would benefit from a slightly larger home. I used ericaceous compost for the plants and I also have ericaceous feed which I add to water occasionally throughout the year. 

We have no way to collect large amounts of rain water in the garden. We have considered buying a water butt but the only drain pipe we have is on the decking and there is no real space for one there and it wouldn't look great either. In the summer we filter our very hard tap water to give to the acid loving plants in the garden and it seems to have worked well enough. 

We have to water the whole west side of the garden daily in the summer as it is raised above the natural ground level and with presence of the large tree of the neighbour's garden, with its roots spanning throughout our garden, it dries out very easily and plants can wilt in the space of an afternoon.

Copyright Robert Widdowson 2016

Both of our blueberry plants in their new matching containers

I am looking forward to see if repotting the blueberries leads to at least improved growth and hopefully improved crops of berries, which are a definite favourite of both of us to snack on!