Don't worry about the flower when it falls off. If the weather is cool enough, the flower will fall off while it's still white. When a heat wave comes by, the flowers will dry up and fall off. It only matters if the new blueberry forming dries up, not the flowers.

Keep doing the same thing, your plants look fine.

This post was edited by prestons_garden on Sat, Mar 16, 13 at 0:12

I agree, your plants look nice. Not every blossom will come to fruition. Keep up the good work.

Looks pretty healthy to me, my plants are not even blooming yet but typically I see some brown and fall off while others drop off before going brown. I think what's "normal" is that they get polinated and as the berry begins to develop the petals eventually turn brown and fall off. However, blueberry plants often overbear and I have noticed on my plants in the past that some blooms simply die early or fall off or turn brown prematurely and in the end I still end up with lots of berries.

Your plant looks healthy. I can't tell for sure but the new growth on the plants looks like you may be experiencing some chlorosis from a high ph......yellowing leaves with the dark veins showing through.

I wouldn't worry too much about the flowers...........

RM

Thank you, guys, for putting my mind at rest! :-)

After reading about "blueberry maggots", I am obsessed with peering into this plant, haha...and then the browning began to concern me.

Now I can go back to looking out for maggots. :-/ I wish I had never read about people biting into blueberries and finding a worm. Why, why, why did I read that!?!!

RM -- I don't know where you are, but yes -- it is quite nice to be able to be in full bloom in March! It's been rather warm compared to previous years; I think SF is in for a hot, hot summer at this rate.
The new growth is quite lighter compared to the very dark old growth. However, I wasn't thinking it was chlorosis due to no veining -- just a lighter color, like new leaves sometimes do?

{{gwi:76892}}

Is it still considered chlorosis then?

I have a gardenia right behind it that IS having an iron issue, so that one got iron but I hadn't given the blueberries any.

Should I? I use the iron pellets so tossing some in before the next watering is not a problem.

Thank you, all, for the reassurance. I'm sure I'll be back with more questions. Hopefully, none of them have anything to do with browning berries!

Your bushes look fantastic. Nothing to worry about for a while. What varieties are you growing? We have 4 Rabbit eyes, Climax and Brightwell. Roughly 6' wide and nearly as tall. They get big, we're running out of room!

A couple notes come to mind, from lessons learned the hard way..

1) I've had great luck using Spanghum peat to maintain ph despite our water's alkalinity. It's a once a year application, rather than applying vinegar frequently or using coffee grounds. Neither prevented chlorosis after year 2.
2) The roots develop a symbiotic relationship w/ fungi so I'd caution to avoid cedar mulch.
3) I'd also caution feeding too often. They do well w/ one feeding at the fruit set, one post harvest before the growth flush begins, and maybe one more during August. Deciduous/chill hours are important, so no food after Sept 1.

Good luck, keep us posted

This post was edited by sun-junkie on Fri, Mar 15, 13 at 22:43

The yellowing RM is refering to is in the 4th picture. Looks like the top leafs of Misty, not the new growth. Either way your plants look to be doing well. Not to worry about the brown flower petals. They have to die to fall off. Thats just how they work. Im growing both Misty and Southmoon and will get to taste them for the first time this spring. Both those varieties are probably the coolest looking plants I have, well besides Bountiful Blue. That plant is a stunner! Have you used any sulfer to lower the ph in the soil? Peatmoss will work also as Sunjunkie stated as will pinebark mulch to a degree. With only one pot is there anyway you can collect rain water from a gutter? It takes alot of the guess work out of growing blues.

If you have iron problem in leaves it take Liquid feed grade iron one teaspoon to gallon a spray mix to correct and change color of leaves all leave need cover spraying because want go from leaf to leaf. The soil applied help later new leaves may be next years leaves. All new planting will survive best with iron applied soil before planting once root system well in place like 3 years old plant the iron applications can stop .

Your bb plants look healthy to me. It is normal for new leaves to be lighter green, they will darken with time. If you see green veins, and yellowing between the leaf veins, that is the beginning of chlorosis. Severe chlorosis will turn the entire leaf yellow. I am guessing that your water is pH neutral, it might be surface water from a reservoir, as opposed to groundwater. When growing blueberries it helps to know the pH of the water you are using. If the water is alkaline pH, it will eventually raise the soil pH and stunt the bb plant. There are solutions for this problem, but you have to begin by measuring the pH of your water. You might be able to find this info by contacting the City water department, and looking at an annual water quality report. It should be published information, available to the public.

Thanks, everyone, for the sound advice and feedback.

Sun-junkie -- I have only two: Southmoon and Misty, with the smaller one shown being the Misty. I think the Misty leaves came with a mild case of powdery mildew, but so far, I have it under control. I'm about to attempt making paneer cheese just to get the whey and try spraying that. Talk about organic, haha.

With spaghnum peat moss, are you mulching on top yearly or repotting entirely with more peat moss? This blend - not made by me -- contains peat, along with sulfur and everything else the nursery uses to get to an alleged pH of 4.8, they said. I use fir bark for everything I have but I'm not sure what the nursery used for bark in this mix.... You would not believe how hard it is to find pine bark in the SF area.

Blueboy -- thanks. Sulfur was definitely added when they put the soil together. :-) As for rain water -- not only would it be near impossible for me to put out buckets near the gutters without HOA throwing a fit, but --- rain itself is really hard to come by here past January. And even in January, it's rare that we get such hard rain that any "pourable" amount would collect, unfortunately. I don't expect to see any significant rain again until November 2013 at best.

Gator - thank you for that info. I didn't realize this "fast-acting" iron pellet bag would still be too slow. I bought some liquid iron that allows for foliar spraying via Amazon and will receive it this week. Whew - that gardenia was problematic; it's blooming but getting more and more chlorotic. I do include the iron pellets in all of my soil mixes, whether it needs it or not.

Eric: I was just about the post my water report in the container forum to see what folks thought re: my city's water. I can read the basics -- but some numbers seem exorbitantly high. Whatever acidity the nursery gave me for the blueberries, I'm probably undoing even though I add vinegar at this rate!
{{gwi:12668}}
Thank you for telling me the report is public -- I didn't know. I couldn't find 2012 data, but 2011 is recent enough that I am comfortable going by these numbers.

Thoughts?

-Grace

The water report will be helpful to you, but the print is too small for me to read on my computer. If you have significant calcium, or calcium carbonate, in your tap water, then this will raise soil pH over time, and the bb plant will eventually begin to suffer. This will be a gradual development, with the first sign likely to be the deep green leaves turning pale green. Based on your photos, I would say that you started out with a high quality soil mix that is very well suited to growing blueberries. You must be skilled at diluting the fertilizer correctly, because the health of the shrubs shows that they are not damaged from too much fertilizer, a common mistake. I have used 5% white vinegar, diluted in tap water, to lower soil pH successfully. However, the vinegar is apparently consumed by bacteria in the soil, so it disappears in a week or two. With vinegar, you have to reapply to maintain a lowered pH. If you think the soil pH is starting to rise, you might try an application of horticultural sulfur to the soil surface, with some light mixing in the top inch of soil. I would think that one teaspoon per pot would be an appropriate amount to start with, up to about one tablespoon. Sulfur has to be metabolized by bacteria in the soil in order to lower pH. This takes time, so an application should last at least 6 months, and possibly a year or 18 months. It is possible to kill a shrub with too much sulfur, so please be cautious with this amendment. The advantage of using sulfur, as compared to vinegar, is that it has a more lasting effect on soil pH. Sulfur is relatively safe to handle, it has no taste that would attract a pet dog or cat, so you can keep a small amount in your house without risking your health.

Sugi,
Just a comment about the bark.Fir bark is fine.
When I was talking to the botanist at Raintree Nursery and said I used Pine bark,it didn't quite register with her and said that she used Fir bark.They are both conifers and are closely related.I use some from an Idaho company,Mountain Magic that mixes both. Brady

ericwi

Hold down Ctrl and Shift then Pick on + key each time press + key it size up until becomes out focus. To back down in size hold same keys click -- key a small patch should show up percent page.

The dark green leaves with the purple tones is sometimes a sign of phosphorus deficiency, but also is common with cold soil. I wouldn't worry about the petals falling or browning that isn't unusual. What kind of polinators do you have in the Bay area? This may just be a symtom of poor pollination.

Hi Eric -

Sorry the jpg was too small; I've attached the actual PDF below, if you want to take a look. :-)

I fertilize at every watering, which would break down to about every 5 days at this point, but I use about a 1/4 tsp (if that) Miracle Gro for Acidic Plants at this point. I add vinegar at each watering -- a swig of it or so per gallon. I'd guess-timate that it's about a tablespoon. For what it's worth, I do water until about a good 20 percent is flowing out of the pot.

The soil does have sulfur in it - and I've also added some time-release type of sulfur pellets, too. Really, all I am trying to do is maintain what must already be quite acidic -- and with this water report, I'm not sure if I am keeping it acidic enough.

Brady - right? Every place I have been to - big box or smaller operations - are thrown off when I was asking for pine bark. We here seem to have fir, cedar, redwood and cocoa chips readily available. I still take a stroll by the bark every so often to see if there's anything labeled pine bark, haha.

Blueberry Hills -- thanks!
As for pollinators -- hmm, bees? The only thing I see flying around here are these really annoying fly-like creatures -- they kind of hover without buzzing like they're not sure where to go. I see the occasional fungus gnat, and pigeons are all over the place. Then I have the occasional bee that decides to come hang out on the balcony for about half an hour doing its job....when he/she arrives, I go inside, haha.

Here is a link that might be useful: Water Report PDF

Pine bark fines are readily available in Georgia, where they have extensive pine forests. This product is hard to find in Madison, WI, as well. Your water has an average pH = 8.6, from the Water Report. This will raise soil pH in your potted blueberry plants, eventually. If there is some sulfur in the soil mix, that will feed the bacteria, and this will keep your bb shrubs on the acidic side of the pH scale for 6 months or maybe a year. At some point, it is likely that the pH will climb, and you will have to add some horticultural sulfur to each pot. To gauge the actual pH of your soil, water the shrub with distilled or de-ionized water, and test the overflow water with a dye indicator solution such as bromocresol green. The sample will turn blue if the pH is 5.4, or higher, and yellow, if the pH is 3.8, or lower. A green sample indicates pH is around 4.6, right where you want to be.

You know, you only have a couple of pots so why worry about finding pine bark, use peat moss. I think everyone would prefer to use peat moss but it is too expensive for commercial use. It will work great as a mulch and will really help with the pH while pine bark or fines are really very marginal for controlling pH.

The reason I asked about pollinators, is that in large metro areas, there is often a shortage of pollinators suitable for blueberries. Bumblebees are great, but people seem to want to destroy their nests. Lawns don't provide great habitate for bees either. There are many small bees such as mason bees that are good for blueberries, but they may also be in short supply. I know that the blueberries in the city of St. Paul never develop the number or size of berries that the bushes out on the farm do and they are twice as big.

Our lawn & garden is free of herbicide and insecticide, and we have quite a few flowering plants, plus clover growing in the grass. We have bumblebees, iridiscent green bees, digger bees, and honeybees, so the blueberries are well-pollinated every spring. We are in the city of Madison. There are urban beekeepers here in town, as well. But I'm not sure how successful they are at producing honey. I suppose that blueberry flowers could be hand pollinated, but I am happy to leave this to the local bees.

Our bushes are in a raised bed, 4' x 14'
I reapply a layer of peat annually and cover w/ screened leaf mold compost mulch. Once a year ph ammendment, 2-3 times per year feeding, automatic watering system. We got about a qt of berries from each bush last year (x4). I give them room, sun, water, and good soil. They're tough and hardy bushes. Everything else is over kill :)

"With spaghnum peat moss, are you mulching on top yearly or repotting entirely with more peat moss? This blend - not made by me -- contains peat, along with sulfur and everything else the nursery uses to get to an alleged pH of 4.8, they said. I use fir bark for everything I have but I'm not sure what the nursery used for bark in this mix.... You would not believe how hard it is to find pine bark in the SF area."

I am a long time bee keeper and also grow BBs, quite successfully as to quantity of fruit.
One point I would like to make a note of, in all the years of both I have never seen my honey bees in the BBs, that in spite of hives only 20 feet away from the beds.
All my pollination is done by Bumbles, we should encourage them more.

I've had a different experience with honeybees. The past 3 springs pretty much all I've had is honey bees pollinating my blues. Early in the season I usually have one or two female bumble bees but once they start a nest they disappear until the workers hatch. Then towards the end of my rabbit eye bloom bumble bees show back up. The rest of the time its honeybees. No hives that I know of around here so it must be a wild hive in the woods across the street. Something I've noticed this spring is the honey bees are staying on my blues with citrus blooming right next to them. In years past every bee with in a mile would be on my Meyer lemon (first citrus to bloom for me) and not touching my blues until the citrus quit. Not the case this year! One or two bees on the lemon and all the others on the blues. Hard to explain but I'm not complaining! I also purchased hornfaced mason bees this spring and they have taken up residence in my bee condo and starting to do there thing. I highly recommend mason bees to any one with fruit trees. They work much harder than the honeybees.

Plenty of honey bees here too Blue. They've been working our blues daily. Our Meyer is just about done w/ its main flush so they've really piled on the blues. Brightwell is full of blossoms. Climax not quite so much, maybe due to the longer chill hour requirement? I've got two mature bushes on craigslist btw, hope they find a good home.

Just checking in.
I'm guessing Misty is earlier than Southmoon as many of her blossoms (?) are swelling. (Misty on left; SM on right.) They swell when they're blue, versus many of the Southmoon's blossoms are turning a pink/blue pretty color but NOT swelling at this time. Given the color change, I thought these would be earlier but my plants say otherwise.

Should I turn this planter again to keep Misty in the sun since it appears she is earlier? Or leave it.....

It's shocking how fast Misty has grown and quite suddenly after remaining quite compact for a couple of months since I planted them in this barrel. It's dense enough that almost none of the actual blossoms/berries are getting any more than dappled sun, at best. While I did the two-to-one-planter more to save space, I am starting to regret having put them in together. Only half the planter gets 6+ hours of sun whereas the inside half gets about 4-5 hours.

These plants are THIRSTY these days. After a complete drenching, they seem to be dry on the top 1/3 of soil within 2-3 days now, even though the weather had been pretty relaxed and cool here. I still try to water every 4-5 days, though, in fear of overwatering.

I'm getting excited to at least taste one before the birds do. :-) I thought about it every which way and there is no feasible yet effective netting solution I can come up with that would work in this small, cramped balcony full of plants. My best option is to attach netting to the stucco which HOA will do for you here due to the shockingly bold pigeon population, but that would make watering and harvesting my peppers and tomatoes impossible....

So my goal is to try at least one. Aim low, and be surprised, haha.

Grace

Healthy looking plants. Being cramped like that in one pot will dwarf the plants. South moon in a pot by its self gets rather large. I've got a 3 year old in a 15 gallon pot that's 5ft tall and 5ft wide and still growing up and out. Misty is a early variety for me while Souhmoon haven't ripened one fruit yet, misty is a little over half done ripening. When I first started growing blues I had a Sunshine Blue with a few dozen fruit on it and to protect I from the birds I used a piece of wedding vale material my wife had and just draped it over the plant. Worked like a charm! My plants are in full sun and I'm watering every other day at this point. When temps start hitting 90+ I water every day. Be sure to keep a thick layer of mulch in those pots. Your plants will thank you!

Hi Blueboy,

Thank you for the advice. They were both small plants looking appropriate for their 1 gal pots that they came in, so I thought this would do for at least a couple of years. Clearly, I was wrong, haha.

I suppose now is not a good time to split them?

I think once the blueberries on Misty are finished, I will give it its own pot. The way it's leafing out, it looks like it would makes gorgeous plant on its own. :-) it has numerous stems from the soil vs. Southmoon with a single trunk and more tree-like at this time. I don't think I can give it any more than a 5 gallon container, though. I wish I had the space for one more barrel! :-(

I am really unsure about what I could plant as companion plants around the soil for blueberries. I originally had ornamental strawberries and didn't like the dinky flowers, and got concerned that the roots were too fast and dense to be good companions and tossed those. Since then, the area is just used for random cuttings I just stick in the soil to propagate or tiny pots with succulents that need more sun. It's like an extended tabletop at this time, haha.

Hmm, wedding veil material....plenty easy to get at the crafts store. I will see I'd birds, indeed, are a problem, and if so -- I'll give that a try! Thank you!

Grace

Nothing wrong with keeping both plants in one pot. In a patio situation its probably best to keep them dwarfed. They just wont get as big but thats okay, they still will make berries for you and stay small enough to manage in you limited space.

I'm relatively certain something is wrong. A quick search makes me think it's bacterial leaf scorch.
Both plants were growing -- albeit it's really unruly growth. Then, I noticed some scorched leaves on both plants -- but since then, while the scorching is not drastic, the Misty is losing a massive amount of leaves. You can see below how drastically it has defoliated! :-( It's losing some of the old (but still dark, dark green) leaves it came with when it was small, but the shocking amount of new leaves it loses is particularly worrisome.

{{gwi:76893}}

The weather here has been mostly mild with a few exceptions where it hit the high 80s. Otherwise, we've stayed in the mid-60s, which made the rampant growth surprising. Sun-wise, the Misty receives less of it than the Southmoon, but the latter also shows some scorching on a few leaves -- not a lot.

{{gwi:76894}}

I'm tempted to just chop off the new growth, leave the berries and transplant the Misty out into its own pot so as to quarantine the poor plant....but as I understand it, that means no berries next year?

Anyway - here are some phone snapshots.

{{gwi:76895}}

{{gwi:76896}}

Other than disease, the only other problem might be underwatering. Due to the weather being so mild/cold, I still water about once every 4-5 days. I'm not sure what an underwatered blueberry bush looks like, though.

Any ideas?
Thank you, guys.

-Grace.

The browning of the leafs is not the main concern here. There isn't a blueberry plant alive today that doesn't get some kind of spotting, browning etc...... What is concerning is the cupping of the leafs. Seems to be starving for water. The color of the leafs doesn't look to be up to par either. With 2 plants in one pot I'm thinking you should either limit the top growth to stay in check with the root space for each plant or just water more often. When day time temps hit 80 degrees I'm watering every 2 days for a 15 gallon pot in full sun. If its windy and 80 degrees I'm watering every day. 90+ every day regardless. Blues need more water than most, especially if in competiton with another plant. Have you checked the soil Ph recently?

I use peat moss and pine needles to mulch my tame blue berries but the wild ones I have all over the place dont get any mulch other than what leaves fall off them and I have them everywhere they grow like weeds here..

Blueboy,

After reading your concern, I was staring at this plant today wondering, "Yeah...really...why ARE those leaves cupping??" and decided to prune it, pull it out and see what's up.

Good Lord, I'm an idiot, lol.

I was carefully digging it out except no matter how far down I went, I wasn't hitting resistance (roots). So I then lifted the plant and holy Jesus, the whole thing pulled up in a completely rootbound 1-gal pot shape from top to bottom. Like I had not even touched the roots when transplanting! And the roots were brown/red/dry. :-(

Except I wouldn't do that.
I am usually a really harsh root pruner -- why would I do something this silly, right?

Well, I then recalled that the Misty has blossoms and I guess I had "the foresight" (lol) to not mess with the roots so as not to risk bud loss?? Or I was gabbing on the phone while transplanting? I have no idea!

Duh.
I hate it when the problem turns out to be my own error! LOL

So, I've now broken up this massive root ball where I really did not find a single healthy root. I kept about a quarter, untangled, and repotted into a 6" pot for now. What a silly mistake....hopefully she can recover.

Thankfully, I did root prune the Southmoon at planting, apparently, and the root growth looked white and healthy on that one, at least what I could see when I lifted out the Misty.

Thanks for pointing out the leaves. Between the leaf loss and browning, I didn't even notice the leaves doing that!!
I will definitely pay more attention to the watering. I planted a bunch of ipomoea and coleus in the original barrel so I'll need to water more often anyway. :-)

Thank you again!

Grace

Since you have just done some needed root pruning, you may need to check if the top growth is in balance. My guess is that you will have to do some top pruning because the roots won't supply enough water to the current top. Desiccation my continue to be a problem until you get this in balance.