How to Care for Blueberry Bushes: A Complete Guide
Get oodles of juicy blueberries every season with these top blueberry growing tips
Blueberries are delicious, but they're a little delicate and sensitive, too. Learning how to care for blueberry bushes will help them survive and produce those beautiful, sweet berries. While it's crucial that you get the initial planting correct, you also need to know how to care for your edible landscape to get the most from your bushes throughout their lives. Our tried and tested blueberry growing tips will help you get healthier bushes and bigger harvests year after year.
How to Choose Which Blueberries to Plant
When you decide to grow blueberries, you’ll need to consider several things before choosing a variety to plant. If not, you risk a poor crop of blueberries and potentially even losing your plant. When choosing a variety of blueberries to grow, consider the following:
Highbush vs. lowbush vs. half-high varieties: Highbush blueberries are tall and upright bushes, while lowbush blueberries grow low on the ground, and half-high varieties are a hybrid of the two. You’ll want to consider the size of the bushes and whether or not its growth habits match the environment you wish to plant them in.
Chill hour requirement: Certain blueberry varieties require a chill time, or a period of dormancy during the winter months, to bear fruit. If your chosen variety requires chill hours, you’ll need to make sure that your plant is exposed to temperatures between 32°Fahrenheit to 45°Fahrenheit for a specific amount of hours.
Zone requirements: Different blueberry varieties are classified into different hardiness zones, which are determined based on the USDA Plant Hardiness Zone Map. Before choosing a blueberry variety, make sure that it is suitable for your hardiness zone.
Your flavor preferences: Not all blueberries taste the same. In fact, blueberries come in a range of flavors, from sweet to tart. When choosing blueberries to plant, consider your flavor preferences and whether or not you plan to eat them fresh or in baked goods.
Cross-pollination: Some blueberries can self-pollinate, but others only bear fruit with the help of cross-pollination. If the variety of blueberries you’re planting requires cross-pollination, you might consider planting multiple bushes.
Disease resistance: Certain blueberry varieties can fight off diseases better than others. You’ll want to find a resistant variety for your area to avoid common blueberry diseases, such as powdery mildew and mummy berry.
How to Plant Blueberry Bushes
You can boost the success of your blueberry bushes by planting them correctly. Each variety of blueberry will come with its own set of standards for planting, but blueberry bush planting steps are relatively the same.
Choosing the Right Site
Before your blueberry bushes are even in the ground, you can boost your chances of a successful harvest by choosing the right place to plant them. To find that, you’ll want to keep in mind the specific needs of the blueberry variety you’ve chosen, including:
Soil pH: Blueberries grow best in acidic soil, specifically soil with a pH range of 4.0 to 5.5. Before planting, test your soil and, if need be, amend it with common soil amendments such as peat moss and pine bark.
Sun exposure: Blueberries thrive in direct sun, so you’ll want to choose a planting site with plenty of sun exposure. You should aim for at least six hours of direct exposure per day.
Drainage: Waterlogged roots are the enemy of blueberry bushes, causing root rot that can ruin the entire plant. You’ll need to choose a site with ample drainage, such as sloped landscapes or raised beds.
Distance between plants: Blueberries require good air circulation, which minimizes the risk of disease, so you’ll want to consider the mature size of these plants. If space is limited, you might consider planting your blueberries in containers, which comes with added benefits, such as greater soil composition control and the ability to move them between different environments.
Plant Only as Deep as the Soil Line
When transplanting your blueberries into a larger container or the bare earth, planting depth is critical. Assuming you're planting bare-rooted blueberries, look at the plant's stem and make note of the soil line location and only plant to this depth. Any deeper, and you risk the bush not rooting correctly or stem rot setting in.
Choose the Right Planting Container
If you plan to grow blueberries in containers, choose a large, roomy pot that gives your blueberry plenty of room to grow and provides ample room for watering, so the delicate roots don't dry out too fast. Ideally, go for 18-inch pots for small to medium-sized bushes.
You should also avoid black and very dark pots. When in direct sunlight, darker colors absorb heat and get too hot, which can bake the soil, increase moisture evaporation, kill off beneficial soil bacteria, and burn the plant's roots.
How to Care for Blueberry Bushes
To make sure that your blueberry bushes give you the best yield possible come harvest time, you’ll need to provide them some extra care. Lucky for you, this is relatively easy to do as long as you adopt these practices:
Use Mulch Effectively
Organic mulches serve many different purposes and can help retain moisture, keep weeds down, regulate soil temperature, and provide nitrogen as they break down.
At the start of the growing season, apply a deep top-dressing of a quality, moisture-retaining mulch around the base of your blueberry bushes.
There are many different types of mulch, but the best for blueberries are pine needles, pine bark, and cedar bark.
Spot Diseases Early
Knowing how to spot diseases in your blueberry bushes early can keep your plants healthy and produce fruit. One of the best ways to spot disease in your berry bushes early is to monitor them regularly by inspecting the leaves and stems of the plants for discoloration and deformities. Common diseases in blueberries include:
Mummy berry disease: Mummy berry disease is a fungus that attacks the new growth, leaves, and fruit on your blueberry bushes. It’s characterized by salmon- to- tan-colored fruit that shrivel and fall to the ground before ever ripening. This fruit mummifies on the ground and must be removed to prevent the fungus from coming back the next year.
Botrytis blight and berry rot: Another fungus, botrytis causes blueberry bushes to appear wet and brown while blight causes gray, fuzzy fungus to appear on blossoms. Cut dead twigs and branches during the dormant season to help prevent blight and rot the next spring and summer.
Powdery mildew: While not the most hazardous disease, powdery mildew can cause leaves and branches to rot away from the plant if left untreated. Pluck dead leaves off the plant as you see them so they don’t develop mildew.
How to Fertilize Blueberry Bushes
Blueberries love acidic soil, with a pH of 4.5 to 5.5, so you'll need to apply a fertilizer designed for acidic-loving plants. Amend the soil to make it appropriately acidic before you plant your blueberries, but then don't fertilize again until the next year. This step lets the plants establish and develop strong root systems, which is essential for future health and fruit production.
Using Pre-Mixed Fertilizers on Blueberry Bushes
Ammonium sulfate or a complete 10-10-10 fertilizer is a good choice for blueberries. For the second and all consecutive years, give two doses of fertilizer. Apply once the buds start to open and the second dose about four to six weeks later.
Using Natural Fertilizers for Blueberry Bushes
If you prefer to fertilize or amend your soil naturally, use blood or fish meal for nitrogen, sphagnum peat moss or coffee grounds provide acidity, and bone meal and powdered seaweed deliver potassium and phosphorus.
It's important to note that blueberries don't like particularly rich soil. However, they still need some nutrients, particularly nitrogen, which you can add naturally by using a nitrogen-rich mulch like alfalfa or cottonseed meal once per year.
This nitrogen-rich meal, in conjunction with the complete 10-10-10 fertilizer, should give your blueberries everything they need. But, if you notice leaves turning yellow with green veins, you may need to amend the soil with extra iron. Or, if the leaves turn reddish near the edges, you'll need to give more magnesium.
One key point for fertilizing blueberries is never to apply fertilizer containing nitrates like calcium or ammonium nitrates, as these can kill your blueberry bushes.
How to Prune Blueberry Bushes
To keep your plants healthy, regularly prune your bushes during off seasons. The process is straightforward and requires a little know-how and a good pear of pruning shears.
Remove the First Flowers
Although it seems counter-productive, you should nip off all the flowers as they appear during the first year. While this means that you won't get fruit in the first year, it sets your plants up for larger harvests in later years.
Removing the first flowers encourages the plant to put all of its energy into developing strong roots and foliage, rather than fruit production. This builds a much healthier, sturdier, more productive bush.
Wait Before Pruning
Don't be too keen to cut back blueberry canes. During the first three years, every new cane is a bonus, and letting them grow creates a strong, bushy growth habit and a healthy, productive crown. The only time you should prune back canes during these first three years is if you've got a broken or significantly damaged cane. Then you should absolutely remove it, as leaving it can encourage pests and disease to set in on the whole plant.
After year three, you can remove older, woodier canes from the center of the crown, particularly those with an inward-pointing growth habit. This helps to open up the crown and reduce the central density, improving airflow and reducing shade.
Aside from removing damaged canes, only prune during the winter when the plant is dormant.
Net the Blueberry Bushes to Protect From Birds
As much as we love blueberries, so do birds. They're one of the worst and most problematic blueberry pests. The only real course of action is to net your blueberry bushes to stop the birds getting at the ripening berries.
Just remember that, unless you have a wide-mesh net, netting too early can impair pollination because mesh makes it difficult for the pollinators to get in and do their thing. Wait until the fruit has set and looks like it's just starting to ripen before you cover the bushes.
How to Control Weeds Around Blueberry Bushes
Blueberries have shallow, delicate root systems, so you need to keep on top of weeds as the fruit bushes cannot compete well with vigorous weeds. However, because their roots are so shallow, you cannot just get in there with your tools and cultivate the top few inches of soil to get rid of the weeds because you'll rip up the blueberry roots and very possibly kill your bushes. So be careful and perform regular checks, removing weeds by hand as soon as you spot them.
Using a sharp hoe to scrape away the emerging roots from the top of the soil is a solid strategy, as is using mulch to keep weeds down.
How to Water Blueberry Plants
Blueberries are not drought-tolerant. Like tomatoes and peppers, they don't like inconsistent watering. Long periods of dry soil followed by a sudden flood of water is remarkably bad for your plants and will, at best, result in reduced fruit yield and, at worst, lead to disease setting in or plant death. Instead, water blueberries at least one inch per week during the growing season.
You'll need to increase this to around four inches per week once the fruit sets and begins to swell and ripen. Soil should remain moist (not drenched) to a depth of about one inch. You can use drip irrigation and moisture-retaining mulches to keep your blueberries sufficiently moist.
How to Harvest Blueberries
Blueberries are one of the easier fruits to harvest. Blueberries are typically ready for harvest in the summer, between June and August, depending on your location and the variety of blueberry. You can pick berries by hand once they’ve turned deep blue. The berries will fall right off the stem with a little pressure if they’re ready to be picked.
Highbush blueberries are slightly more complex. You’ll need a blueberry rake which allows you to rake the blueberries from the ground in an upward motion. Drag through the plant with the rake and the ripe blueberries will fall into the rake. Keep a gathering basket or bucket with you to put the picked berries in.
After harvesting your blueberries, store them in a cool place or refrigerate them. This method helps maintain the freshness of the berries until you’re ready to cook or eat them. Always avoid leaving them in direct sunlight for an extended period.
DIY vs. Hiring a Pro
Caring for blueberry bushes is not a small feat. If you’re unsure how to diagnose your plants or need help with their maintenance, connect with a landscaper in your area who can help you come up with a plan. Professional landscapers have the skills, tools, and experience to cultivate healthy blueberry bushes based on your climate zone and growing conditions. Hiring a professional landscaping service costs $50 to $100 per hour, depending on the task and your home’s location. Consider bundling several regular yard maintenance tasks to save money on landscaping costs.
Frequently Asked Questions
You can use Epsom salt if your blueberries need magnesium. You should add one tablespoon of Epsom salts and one tablespoon of apple cider vinegar to two gallons of water and apply to the base of the blueberry plants. This method can help revive blueberry plants and encourage them to green up.
You don't need to prune your blueberry bushes during the first three years after planting. You just need to remove any damaged branches to avoid drawing nutrients away from healthy parts of the plant. After three years, you can prune the plants in the dormant season to remove overgrowth and encourage new growth instead.
A blueberry bush will grow blueberries for 15 to 20 years and can produce six pounds of fruit in peak years. However, in ideal conditions, blueberry bushes can live up to 50 years or more. Blueberry bushes grow slowly, but if you keep up with regular maintenance and upkeep, they can last for decades and cultivate years-worth of delicious fruit.