Angela: Trunks turning from green to brown over a short period of time indicates they are dying. How close is "next"? I wouldn't plant a blueberry very close to raspberry bushes because raspberries spread and you don't want to be digging around a blueberry plant to get them out. The immediate cause of the death of your blueberry plant is most likely excess moisture. Blueberries have very fine roots that rot easily, and three or four days of waterlogged soil is enough to kill them. For this reason, good drainage is essential, and if you dug out and amended a nice hole in a low area, followed by heavy rains, the plant could easily have drowned. Leaves on a drowned plant look much the same as those that have been sunburned. Although I doubt that over-fertilization is killing your plant, I agree with gardenmom that fertilizer is not necessary the first year after planting, although amendments to lower the Ph, particularly peat moss, are helpful. Also agree with gardenmom that it is best to remove all blueberries the first year after planting, or better yet remove the blossoms before they even form berries. This is to allow your plant to put its energy into growth instead of struggling to produce berries the first year. You should be more specific about exactly what your "special low PH stuff" fertilizer is. Brand name would be helpful. Don Yellman, Great Falls, VA

I have a couple of blueberry bushes in a mixed bed along the southern edge of the woods. The bed is largely shrubs though it has woodland perennials and ferns, as well as trees along the back edge. Even though they are the same cultivar of blueberry, they produce well, maybe because there are wild highbush blueberries around. They are well mulched with sawdust and never watered since there isn't a water source nearby. None of the other plants are growing right under their feet. I really like them - great fall color; lovely, though subtle flowers, and those delicious berries. I've had no problems with competition from birds or chipmunks (knock on wood) - maybe there are enough alternate food sources since this is in a wooded rural area.

How tall of bushes are you looking for?? Some get really tall, some are half high and other are dwarfs. I picked the half high ones that bloom mid season. A bunny ate one of my Chippewa last year. I found my Sams Club had Chippewa this year!! My bluegold is still going strong. The spacing of my plants are based on the varieties I picked. I agree that you need to prepare your soil now and plant down the road. I picked up a hugh bag of sphagnum peat moss, blood meal, cottonseed meal, garden sulfur, my neighbor's pine needles for mulch and a ph meter. Here are some link for research: http://web1.msue.msu.edu/fruit/bbvarbul.htm http://www.fallcreeknursery.com/Nursery/VarietyChart/SouthernHighbush.htm http://www.justfruitsandexotics.com/Blueberries.htm The people on the GW fruit forum can help too. Bluecrisp was a new one they were talking about. My favorite azaleas are the deciduous exbury azaleas. They are more slow growing upright ones. I have mine in the partial shade. Is your area full sun?? Or does it get any shade? Here is a link that might be useful: Evaluation of eight low chill blueberries

Suzie, I've only seen the seed at one place....Wildseed Farms which is down in the Fredericksburg, TX, area. Back when I bought my original seed 5 or 6 years ago, they only had purple and pink, but now they also have a mix which includes purple, pink and white. (The pink ones I have don't reseed as well as the purple ones, and I haven't deliberately planted white, but I get white ones from some of the volunteers that come up from the pink ones every year. I also get some solid pink and some pink and white streaked, striped or mottled ones.) Orginally, when I still lived in Texas in the 1990s, they had a petunia called VIP (for Very Important Petunia) and it grew better and better as the weather got hotter. You did have to cut it back once or twice during the summer or it would get sort of raggedy but it came back into bloom really fast after you cut it back. It spread out about 3 or 4 feet and was wonderful. Then, for a year or two, it seemed to disappear from the stores. Then, just as suddenly, we had 'Laura Bush' petunia which I think either was an improved VIP petunia, a selection from VIP or maybe had VIP as one of its parents. Then we moved here and I couldn't find them here. After several years of searching for them, I found seed at Wildseed Farms, ordered some, planted them, and they've been happily reseeding themselves ever since. The ones I planted last spring (volunteers I dug up from the garden and transplanted into the pots) in large containers (as understory plants under brugmansias and daturas) have been overwintering in the garage. They were in bloom until it snowed and our temperature dropped to 3 degrees. They didn't die, but the cold knocked their blossoms off and the tips of some branches are freeze-damaged though not dead. I need to cut them back and feed them and see if they'll come back into production, but am amazed at how cold-hardy they are and also at how well they flower in the heat. I've linked Wildseed Farms below. I get a lot of my flowers seeds from them, includng a wildflower blend, Texas Bluebonnets, Alamo Fire (Red) Bluebonnets, the Laura Bush petunias, and various types of zinnias, cosmos and sunflowers. Dawn Here is a link that might be useful: Wildseed Farms