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Fruit & Orchards

Blueberry Advice: Yellowing Leaves, Few Berries

14 years ago

This is our first growing season in our new house.

Because everything was so overgrown, we didn't even know there were two blueberry bushes in the bed along the side of the garage until May or June when we started to remove a bunch of overgrown lilies.

Now, we've removed everything but the two blueberries, and we'd like to put in a couple more blueberries in spring, but before we do, I need advice about the ones we have.

One of them is healthy looking and we got a few berries off of it for a few months. The other bush is about half the size, and about half of it is yellow, and it had almost no berries.

I know blueberries like acid soil, but don't know why one would be yellow when three feet away one is fine. The bed they are in is very dry, with a brick wall at the back, so quite warm. We're in central Kentucky, and the blueberry bed gets full sun from about noon on.

Is this the wrong site for blueberries?

How can we help the yellow plant?

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Comments (4)

frozen_north
14 years ago
I would suggest getting your soil tested so you can understand where your soil is overall. If you don't have acid soil, chances are that the prior owner added sulfur or ammonium nitrate to lower the pH. This may have been effective for one plant but not the other (uneven application or perhaps the two were planted at different times and only one got soil amendments).

The chlorosis you describe is, for plants that require acid soil, frequently a symptom of soil with a pH that is too high.
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ericwi
14 years ago
The blueberry shrubs will need to be watered immediately, if you want them to survive. If you have hard water, it helps if a small amount of white vinegar is added, to lower the pH. I have to add 6 fluid ounces of grocery store vinegar (5%) to 4 gallons of tap water, to be used on our blueberry shrubs. Blueberries are not swamp creatures, but they do need some moisture around the roots to survive.
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I used to buy it 4 gallons at a time from Eleanor, which ended up costing me around $20/bottle. But you can get one gallon from Charley's Greenhouse Supply for $24.95 + $8.95 shipping which makes it 26 cents/ounce. Buying one of those 16 ounce bottles ends up costing $15.30 w/shipping, which makes it almost a buck an ounce. My sister now carries it at her nursery about 30 miles from here, so I get it from her by the gallon these days. If you have a lot of plants and use it all the time, it goes fast. I go through about 2 gallons a year. One suggestion though... Pouring out of those big gallon jugs is a hassle and sloppy. I keep an old dishwashing soap bottle full of it along with a shot glass on a shelf in the GH so it's handy to put in my water every time. Anyway, here's a link to Charley's. Denise in Omaha Here is a link that might be useful: VF-11 at Charley's
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gator_rider2
14 years ago
Side of brick wall not good place for blueberries bricks and morter has lime so ph be high in that area. Fig is plant to put up close to brick wall. Old brick walls will feed soil less but ph in soil stay around longtime.
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leafy02
Original Author
14 years ago
Thank you all. Given that Nikko blue hydrangeas bloom pink in our soil, and a holly on the other side of the house had chlorosis also, I am sure our soil is alkaline, and then yes, there is the concrete foundation and the bricks.

I really don't want to move the blueberries if I can get around doing so with soil amendments, as the rest of the yard is already more than full.

It is no problem to water the area and I'll add it to my rotation. Putting vinegar in the water won't be hard, either.

Other than the vinegar, for adding acidity to the soil, what do you all recommend? I've read that mulching with pine needles helps, but I haven't seen any bags of pine needles, only pine bark and pine nuggets. What about HollyTone, which I bought to help the cholorotic holly when I moved it to a better site?
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