YouGarden Blueberry collection x 3 varieties in 9cm Pots

Now more than ever is the time to grow something tasty from home and this is your chance to grow your very own crop of incredibly tasty blueberries on your patio.

This veritable superfood is believed to carry all manner of health benefits and is recommended by health experts and dietitians accordingly. Packed full of vitamins and minerals as well as antioxidants, they are not only really good for you, but they taste great too.

Besides tasting great, blueberries will also provide true season-long interest for your garden with wonderfully fragrant tubular blossom in spring, followed by delicious fruits that form and colour up ready for picking from June onwards.

This collection will provide 3 months of harvest from June until August with each bush providing up to 5kg (over 10lbs) of fruit per season once fully established. Blueberries make brilliant patio plants and will grow perfectly in pots.

Do remember to use ericaceous (slightly acidic pH) compost though as all blueberries are lime intolerant. In autumn, the foliage will provide a bright flourish of scarlet colour before falling off for the winter.

The collection comprises 3 varieties, selected for their wide continuous harvest period and ease of growth in your home garden.

Varieties

• Early: 'New Hanover' - The earliest cropping and a heavy cropper with fruits of a good size but with a wild blueberry flavour delicious.
• Mid: Blueberry 'Blueray' - A popular, tasty mid-season cropper providing big crops of juicy sweet fruits.
• Late:  'Ozark Blue' - The latest cropper within our collection providing a big crop of delicious berries it is one of the most popular varieties and a real favourite of chefs.

Specifications

• Supplied as established potted plants, 1 x early variety, 1 x mid-season variety and 1 x late variety
• All supplied in 9cm pots
• Will grow to approx. 1-1.5m (3-5ft tall)
• Availability: All year round
• Planting time: February - November
• Flowering time: April
• Fruiting time: June - August

Top Tips

• While tolerant of shade, blueberries crop better in the sun.
• Cover plants with netting when in fruit, otherwise you'll just end up feeding the birds.
• Pick over the plants several times as not all the fruit ripens at the same time.
• Fruits can be left on the bush for a few more days after they turn blue for a more intense and complex flavour when they'll also easily pull away from the cluster.
• Although self-fertile and able to produce a good crop on their own, blueberries yield much more heavily if planted near another one.

Care Information

• Plant in well-drained, acidic soil in a sunny, sheltered spot.
• If your garden soil has a pH over 5.5, your blueberry is best grown in a pot, in ericaceous soil. Keep it well-watered - don’t allow the soil to dry out.
• Water blueberries with rainwater if you can as tap water will gradually raise pH levels.
• Feed every month with a liquid fertiliser for ericaceous (lime-hating) plants.
• If growing blueberries in the garden, add plenty of organic matter such as pine needles or composted conifer clippings. Avoid farmyard manure as it will scorch the roots.
• Pruning is rarely needed in the first two years. After that prune in late Feb – early Mar, aiming to remove a proportion of old wood every year. Two-year-old wood is the most productive.
• Take out any damaged, dead, and diseased wood and prune out low branches that will lie on the ground when full of fruit.