gladgourd, Millers Nursery sells a 6 plant high bush Blueberry collection for about $45 + shipping. Planted mine two months ago. I also planted a Chandler Blueberry from Stark Nursery. The Millers collection ripen at early mid and late season which is why I bought them.

Here is a link that might be useful: Blueberry

First, I wouldn't recommend Miller's for anything, even though I never had a problem with their blueberries they have a well earned reputation for being unreliable in terms of variety ID. Just because they have a lot of happy (lucky) customers doesn't explain away this fact. I have been a victim of their poor managment when orderning fruit trees from them. And their whole promotion thing of the particular hardiness of thier stock is nonsense (most of what they sell are clones that they don't even produce).

Before asking for variety recommendations you need to share your approximate location.

Harvestman, Are they a competitor of yours?

I would also not recommend Millers. I have some trees from them which worked out OK but around half did not either to lack of vigor in the bareroot sent, poor rootstock choice (see recent thread on peach rootstock for example), or misidentification (see recent thread on gage plums for example). Their blueberries are one thing that did work out OK. No they are not rip-off artists like TyTy or Southmeadow, but they are a decidedly mediocre operation.

Hartmanns is an excellent blueberry nursery, the one that many professional operations use. They also sell the latest varieties.

Scott

Here is a link that might be useful: Hartmanns

Scott, you said you planted the Millers blueberry collection and they were good. The several orders I placed with Millers were the best for; e mail information response, delivery takes 2 days, good size stock & roots, packaging, fair price.
Two cherry trees I planted from Miller grew out 6 feet last summer. I have no affiliation with them. Miller has low prices also on their soil acidifier and pesticides. I think we all get different experiences in our dealings.

Gladgourd:

I would add Finch Blueberry Nursery in NC as a potential source; true to name plants, a good selection of varieties and sizes, and favorable prices. Miller's would also be way down on my list. I am mistrustful of hype.

Most blueberry plants are shipped bareroot, and can arrive very early -- often in the month of March. That's a good thing, but you want to be ready to plant almost immediately, since leaving the plants around can lead to the roots drying out and curtains for the plants, even though they are packed with moistening materials.

It wouldn't hurt to begin preparing your beds now, if you can work your soil. You may be lucky enough to have naturally acidic (low Ph) soil, but all blueberries can benefit from about 1/3 or more sphagnum peat moss mixed into the top 6 inches of soil. After planting, mulch heavily with shredded leaves, sawdust, or whatever you have around. Blueberries resent drying out, especially during their first season. If you are dealing with clay soil, peat moss is even more important to blueberry health. Never allow weeds or grasses to grow close to your blueberries, since they have fine, shallow roots that do not compete well.

It is always a good idea to provide your location, which is more helpful to people trying to advise you than your climate zone alone. In some zone 7 locations, you may have the option of planting Southern Highbush or Rabbiteye blueberries as well as Northern Highbush. I have all of them here in N. Virginia. My favorite N. Higbush is Blueray, followed closely by Patriot.

Don Yellman, Great Falls, VA

Ace, here is some hard data from the Garden Watchdog ratings:

Millers past 12 months ratings: 5 positive 3 neutral 4 negative
Hartmanns past 12 months: 6 positive 0 neutral 0 negative
Finch (none in past 12 months but over all time 5 positive 1 negative).

5-3-4 pretty much defines mediocre in my mind. If you read the ratings you will also see complaints about wimpy blueberries from recent orders.

Scott

Here is a link that might be useful: Miller at GWD

Ditto what Scott just said. There are too many good nurseries out there with great reputations and good customer service to have to deal with mediocrity.

Thank you, everyone, for these great tips. I live northwest of Baltimore, Maryland and I think my acidic soil would be a natural for blueberries. Jellyman, what a great primer on blueberry planting! That is so helpful.

I also have the Miller catalog and I was thinking of ordering from them. After reading some of the comments here, I am rethinking that idea.

some more blueberry information for you and the link to the Finch farm in NC:

http://www.ces.ncsu.edu/depts/hort/hil/hil-8207.html
http://www.ces.ncsu.edu/depts/hort/hil/hil-202.html
http://www.danfinch.com

I get blueberry plants every year from the County Extension's 4-H sale, and the plants come from Finch's. All have survived and most varieties have done very well.

I recommend you find a nursery that carries Virgina Berry Farm blueberries. They sell very well developed potted plants to retail nurseries East of the Mississippi. I lost all the Miller blueberries, even their replacements. I was not able to get a good crop going until I found the Virginia Berry Farm blueberries at a local nursery. But, if you live West of the Missippi you are out of luck.

As far as I am concerned, blueberries rate close to the best fruit you can grow. We had some for breakfast this morning and will continue to do so for the next few weeks. We just take them out of the freezer for a bit and then cut some banana up in them and enjoy, and there is the muffins and waffles if you so desire.

As far as varieties, get several that are suited for your area. Try to extend the harvast as long as possible or at least until the blackberries and raspberries come in.

Oops, Sorry, I missed you second post. West of the Mississippi, I would say you are.

Good, we got the nursery thing straightened out. No they are not a competitor- just a former supplier of my bearing age tree nursery. I don't sell any small stuff- every tree I sell is at least 1.75" diameter. Aceofspades I have probably purchased many times as many plants from Millers as you. A good business should satisfy a much higher percentage of their customers than millers.

Don's advice was very good. Just be sure you have excellent drainage or you'll need to plant on raised beds. I prefer large fruited varieties although some say they aren't as flavorful. Not my opinion and they take so much time to pick that I like the advantage of big fruit. But then I'm extremely busy during the growing season.

I like Duke for early, Berkely and Bluecrop for mid and Elliot for late. Be sure to plant Elliot, as far as I know, no other cultivar will do as much to extend your season.

Thank you Scott for you always excellent research.

gladgourd, I didn't know where you were. I'd look for a Nursery closer than Miller. I did love those well packaged orders that were on the road for only two days. When I opened the blueberries there were two large about 24' plants and four 12" small ones. I thought the order was wrong. I read the order and it said 12"-18" plants then I realized they threw in the larger ones for the ones on the small side.

Scott, by chance 2 weeks ago I felled a large tree and some of those blueberries got trampled. I queried Hartmann by email just now. You have the Miller blueberry collection which Hartmann varieties would you recommend. I was thinking Elliot like harvestman wrote. What are the good new varieties.

Ace, I have been trying some of the Southern highbush types since they are later fruiting; you should also be able to grow them in your zone. I added O'Neal and Ozarkblue recently. Also I am trying a Little Giant. None have fruited yet since I just put them in last summer but there have been good reports on them in this forum.

Scott

Scott, Hartmanns email this morning; "Good Morning,

Thank you for your inquiry.

You have enough sunlight for the blueberry plants to grow successfully. For your zone I would recommend some of the Northern Highbush varieties such as Blue Ray, Blue Jay, Elliott, Hannah's Choice, Legacy and others.

The main ingredient for raising blueberry plants is the soil. The pH needs to be between 4.5 and 5.5. This can be achieved by planting the plants with peat moss and fertilizing with mir-acid or Miracle Gro.

If you have any other questions please let me know."

Hartmanns recommends Northern highbush for me to plant along a tree line. Their plants are 2 years old 8-10" for $8 each. The Little Giant is $20 for a 2 year plant.
Miller has 3 year plants 12-18" and stocks 17 northern varieties. Miller five plant hardy collection for $40 includes Patriot that Jellyman recommends and Bluejay.
I think I am getting a better deal with Miller 3 year plants.

gladgourd, you should consider southern blueberry types in Baltimore due to the heat.

Thank you again for this great information. Theaceofspades: I am going to give the southern blueberries a try. Also, I did some checking and found that there is actually a nursery I can purchase them from in Biglerville, PA... not too far from me.

I found them on GardenWatchDog. Thanks for directing me there Scott.
Wow, I had no idea there were so many varieties of blueberries. This reminds me of my first foray into gardening when I said I want to grow "tomatoes." At that time, I thought a tomato was a reddish colored "fruit." I have since discovered so many colors, textures, leaf types etc!

Aceofspades, good point, maybe Miller would be a good source in the context of a small purchase of blueberries. I always bought 100 plants at a time which made Hartman's a much better deal. Miller's never caused me any grief with blueberry and bramble purchases- but then, I never ordered much of those from them.

The reason I discourage people from buying from Miller's is that I consider their general business model to be unethical and I like to reward honest business people with my money. Miller's catalogues are always loaded with the salesmanship of misleading or flatly false info. and in the past salespeople have lied to me such as by replacing a dead grafted persimmon tree with a seedling and claiming it was produced through tissue culture. Upon researching the state of this science I feel certain that was a bald faced lie.

I have also lost customers when a tree I sold to them was supposed to be a given variety when purchased from Miller and it turned out to be something entirely different. Waiting six years to discover that a supposedly Green Gage plum is some kind of mediocre purple thing is exasperating. Admittedly, even honest merchants make mistakes, but generally ones reputation is established by a balanced assesment of overall performance by the customer base.

harvestman, from your long experience in orchard management what does "that I consider their general business model to be unethical". All of these mass mailed fruit catalogs are hyped and loaded with broad claims. e.g. 'Dwarfing Rootstock' The catalogs are not designed for you and me. We already got our trees planted. Most new folks know just to cover the roots, water and see if it grows. In any business, managers do unethical practices for the bottom line. A manger of a supply company was stamping materials delivered to me for higher cost. He said he thought they were the same. Now he he brings always the highest quality and says so. So, on an individual basis you can inform responsible people that can change things. Especially family run nurseries. When a mass marketed based nursery is bad the internet quickly surrounds them. If you went back to the customer that you lost you will find they had worse experience with the new guy.

Ace, this is sometimes a subjective evaluation as far as where to draw the line. Miller's stands out as being worse than many others in my mind and I shared with you a couple of examples of why. Calling their stock extra hardy because they happen to be based in Candelagua or whereever, is another. No mention that much of their stock is produced elsewhere or that with clonal materials this would have no affect on hardiness.

It is possible that my experiences, all of which occured a couple decades ago, are no longer relevant, but I repeatedly hear others on line complaining of similar kinds of experiences with them. It is admittedly a subjective and anecdotal sampling but I think there is a clear trend here. Scott's info seems to further confirm my evaluation.

Aceofspades,

If price is an issue, then Finch's has lower per plant prices, unless you order wholesale from Hartmann's (100 total plants and you can mix varieties). Hartmann's 2 yr blueberries are potted, though, so I'd wager they'd catch up to a 3 yr bareroot in a year or so. They do charge a premium for Little Giant (at retail, but not wholesale). Compared to their retail prices, Oikos has LG cheaper.

I've recommended this before, but it really isn't that hard to come up with a 100 plant order if you've got room for a few more rows of canefruits (very robust bareroot plants at $1.15 apiece). At wholesale, you can get kiwis at $1.45, currants and gooseberries at $1.75, etc. This can be a good thing or a bad thing depending on whether you really need a more plants....

djofnelson

Harvestman:

Sure agree with you on "Canandaigua Quality" stock, and the suggestion that it is somehow more hardy because it is grown in cold weather, even though it is identical to that sold by most other nurseries. St. Lawrence and Fedco actually do sell trees that are more hardy, because they use tough scion varieties on standard rootstocks. I would much rather have full confidence in receiving true-to-name stock.

The one that gets to me, however, is the recent practice of many nurseries selling "organic" nursery stock and seeds. There is no way that a nursery tree can remember whether it has been grown organically or not, and organic seeds are a deception (although untreated seeds can be useful to chemically sensitive persons). When you plant a tree or seed you start over from zero, and if you want to grow organically that is when the decision is made.

There is a lot of exaggeration in the nursery trade bordering on fraud, but most of us eventually learn to sort through it and direct our business to firms that keep the hype to a minimum. Garden Watchdog can be somewhat helpful in this respect.

Don Yellman, Great Falls, VA

Don, I've always felt that the need for organically grown fruit trees is a bit over the top- but then I think the entire organic food movement is based on a faulty anti-science premise. I believe strongly in small farm sustainable agriculture but there have to be some synthetic compounnds that do a lot more good then harm. Farmers always seem to get the short-end. If the planet shuts down on humanity, my money is on industrial pollution as key culprit and a society that just can't get enough cheaply made envirionmentally destructive goods.

That said, I have known some nurserymen like Neal, of Trees of Antiquity who produces all of his own trees organically. If you talk to him you know instantly you are speaking to a man of integrity.

Still, give me a 7/8" caliber BR that's been pumped up with nitrogen and anything else that makes it jump into the world with max vigor. Nowadays N costs too much to waste and even though it has a high carbon footprint getting a tree to size a year early has to balance the price environmentally.

Best, Alan Haigh

djofnelson, Finch's has a lower Blueberry price because they let you select only 'Northern high bush', 'Southern High bush' or 'Rabbit eye'.

You said; "Hartmann's 2 yr blueberries are potted, though, so I'd wager they'd catch up to a 3 yr bareroot in a year or so."

I'd bet they would too.

In quatity purchases, I just remember that I actually used to use Degrandchamps Nursery for blueberries, not Hartman's. They also sell a variety of other plants but I'm not sure if they allow you to mix species to reach the 100 threshold.

aceofspades, Finch's order form is a little confusing. The offer packages of multiple plants where they get to pick the varieties. However, you can still buy your choice of individual 3-yr plants for $6.20 apiece.

harvestman, thanks for the link.

Here is a link that might be useful: Finch's Order Form