US: Blueberries bloom in June

Acid soil, part shade, lots of leaves, sounds familiar? Wouldn't it be great to find an easy to grow plant that would flower, have great fall color and even yield about 8 quarts of fruit each season and needed the above conditions.Well, blueberries just might fit the bill. These delicious, succulent tasty fruits will thrive in many soils. They will tolerant almost any kind as long as it is acid (4 or 5 pH. They have flourished in sandy soil, heavy soil and even in bogs when there is a lot of humus from decaying leaves and other organic materials.

A woodland plant, they need a good leafy mulch to have healthy roots. One of the nice things about blueberries is that they are not demanding and they encourage us to reduce lawn and make natural plantings under groups of oak trees. They look wonderful in borders as well as in a garden plot or flower bed. Here in southern N.J. the sandy acid soil is just what the plant grows in naturally. Since they need a woodland situation you won't have to rake leaves under these plants! Just pretend it is the woods and let them thrive! Add a few native wild flowers a few other small flowering shrubs and the forest garden will be complete.

Blueberry bushes have white, sometimes pink tinged bell like blooms in May. Sometimes the plants are completely covered, usually just before the leaves come out and also while the leaves are unfurling. Soon light green berries replace the blooms and the plants are just covered with clusters of them. As the season progresses they gradually turn to light and then dark blue. They can be picked for pies, jams and fruit cups and also shared with the birds. I have been picking and eating those on plants in the nursery before the chickens get to them!

The fall colors of these plants often includes a blazing red, orange and copper combination of hues. This alone would make the plant a desirable landscape addition to most yards. Then in winter the branches are often yellowish green and as well as red tinged, which give this shrub a year round landscape value. Blueberries need very little care, but if any pruning is done, it should be done immediately after fruiting so as not to cut off next year's flower buds.

There is the high bush blueberry, the one most often seen in the trade and the one usually grown for fruit. This plant can get to be around 5-6 feet high, but can get higher if never trimmed and can also be kept smaller if pruned regularly. There is also a low bush wild blueberry that can sometimes be found. This one is a short, scraggly shrub, often not getting any taller than two feet. Its most often found growing in very sandy, almost sterile places from Maine south in coastal regions.

There are many of these in southern N.J., especially in the Pine Barrens. Hammonton New Jersey is often said to be the blueberry capital of the world. It is not unusual when traveling to pick up a box of blueberries in a store and see Hammonton on it. Blueberries are beginning to ripen now. There will be the 24th. Annual Whitesbog Blueberry Festival on Saturday, June 28, www.whitesbog.org.

This is the 'birthplace 'of the cultivated blueberry named after Elizabeth White. She was very important in blueberry culture. And Blueberries are considered herbs. Ask chairman of the Herb Society S J unit Elyse Cramer who lead tours in Whitesbog and also lectures on Elizabeth White and blueberry lore. I have found that blueberries plants respond best to compost and organic materials added to the soil, rather than lots of fertilizer. The birds get more from my few bushes than I do, but I plan to add several new plants this year so that there will be enough for us all.

Just a few woodlanders that would grow well with blue berries would include mountain laurel, rhododendron, wild azalea, itea, viburnums and cherry laurel. I like a wild native plant looking azalea named after Betty Cummings who was an azalea grower (nurserywoman) known for many fine selections, especially of US native deciduous species. Her propagation skills also made rare and hard-to-propagate clones available to a very wide audience.

There are plants named after her that are reminiscent of the wild plants found in the woods. The strong pleasant fragrance forces one to notice the tubular pink or white flowers appearing in late June or early July. The green deciduous leaves turn yellow or orange in the fall. And my very favorite is the Swamp magnolia or Sweet Bay Virginiana is another native that will do well near the blueberries both in the garden and in the woods. This is a woodland plant that does well in sun or part shade as long as it is watered well about once a week. Once established it needs little or no care. It is so fragrant and now in bloom throughout southern N. J. No woodland garden would be complete without it.


Source: southjerseylocalnews.com

Publication date: 6/27/2008

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