What fruitnut suggests has worked very well for me. I first acidified my potting soil (1/2 peat compost and 1/2 azaella, camellia mix) with about 1/2 cup of soil sulfer (large pots). I then planted, taking care to break up the root ball (apparently very important, as they can have root ball shock if you dont' do this). I watered in carefully, then set my drips. I checked the pH for the next couple of weeks every day. I had to adjust my pH down a wee bit, and I did this with a few tablespoons of ammonium sulfate diluted in a couple of gallons of water. I made sure the pH of the acidified water was about 4, since I needed to pull down the pH a bit. That did the trick and they have been doing extremely well ever since. I did check the pH about 3 or 4 weeks ago, and it was still around 4.5 to 5.0 per pot. So, they're happy campers and I'll even get some fruit this year. After the fruit is off, I'll pinch back like what fruitnut has done to keep the tallness down, and get them to bush out a bit, especially my more leggy blueberries. Patty S.

Thanks for all the thorough replies and the warm welcome! I went back out before there were replies, and the fly was gone and there was no damage on the leaf he was on, so I'm pretty sure it's fine, as most of you said. I saw another one on the bush while I was out there. We walked over to the community garden and saw several more on various plants, so I guess they are a common bug in this area that I've just never noticed before; or they've only been around for a short while. I was most perplexed by the color-- they are very metallic in sheen, which reminded me of sweat bees, but sweat bees only seem to come in iridescent shades of blue and green. I haven't seen any pictures with a fly this color-- they are so metallic that they are extremely visible even from a few feet away. Thank you for the picture compliments fruitnut and charina! It's just an iphone picture, but I have had a few hobbies that encouraged the development of macro-photography skills. :) I appreciate the thorough "bug expert" replies that taught me more about insects, charina and gator_rider! I've noticed there's not a lot of pictures on here of the brazelberry bushes (perhaps because they are so recently introduced and are expensive and patented), so here's a top-down picture of the peach sorbet that had the fly. It's been recently put in the new planter, it was in a 1 gallon nursery pot. (The grass is terrible, I know. The yard was neglected for over a year and we haven't had time to do a lot yet. I'm a gardening enthusiast, I don't care about grass so it's hard for me to get excited about growing new grass).

The yellow one is probably short nitrogen. See if you can find a fertilizer for acid loving plants. Something high in nitrogen. The good color on the dark green one indicates that your pH is probably OK. Keep up the water and feed them more. I think you'll be rewarded with good growth and abundant crops.

Scuzzy, They can't take being dry even for hours...the result is what you see in the picture. In some climates they require watering daily or even twice a day. If the pot is in the sun you can imagine how hot the pot and soil inside get. If you keep it moist it should recover. You could put it in a much larger pot which would help keep the roots cooler and it would dry out slower. If the pot is not plack that helps..even just spray paining the pot would help..wrapping it in foil also works. Personally I would put it in a much larger pot.