I've considering ordering from Finch before, but always ended up getting my blueberries in the same order as my other fruiting plants. My dad lives in Durham and he drove there a few years ago and got eight, large, healthy, 3-gallon plants each for about the price of a bareroot plant, i.e., less than $20 apiece (might have been $10 or $15). If you've got the time, drive there and you'll put yourself at least one year (maybe two) ahead harvest-wise. If you're getting bareroot plants, I wouldn't go any higher than 3 year plants. The only time I've ever ordered older bareroot blueberries (4-5 year plants), they grew sluggishly and the younger plants caught up quickly. If you're buying potted and can drive to Finch with a pickup truck, then I'd fill the bed up with 3 and 5 gallon plants and move yourself a lot closer to that first good harvest. A properly planted and cared for 3 or 5-gallon rabbiteye will grow fast (as will some of the southern commercial varieties like Tifblue); a lot faster than the northern varieties. You may already know this, but prep the soil to make it acid, give them a really thick mulch (makes a huge difference in my experience), don't let them dry out, and periodically fertilize with a dilute fertilizer for acid loving plants (Mir-acid, which I use, or time release granules that you may have seen posted about here). Glad to hear about Yadkin. I've got a young one from EL that hasn't fruited yet.

Sounds like a house finch. The winter plumage of the Am. gold finch is more olive than browm with distinct black and white bars. Too, I currently have lots of gold finches and strangely enough, there is one already in full breeding plumage! Donna

Hi, sorry, a little late to the party. I just moved to CO and this is my first winter here, used to live in MI. In MI, I rarely saw a finch in the winter. Here is CO, I have a lot of finches (red right now but some were yellow in the fall). I also get titmice (titmouses?), chickadees, downy woodpeckers, and flickers on a daily basis. Anyway, I have both black oilers in a tube and suet basket. The finches, titmice, and chickadees seem to like the suet. They eat both the seed and the suet, but the suet is what attracted them in the first place.

my sister has tons of birds around her place and many eat off the ground under the seed feeders. she just about gave up on feeding birds cause the stray cats wound lay under her shrubs and bushes and pounce on the birds. She found some green enameled fence at home depot and put 4 green metal fence posts in the ground and wraped the fence around them. it did not take long for the birds to get used to it and the green color was not very noticeable except close up because it blended in with the surrounding plants. she can still fill the seed feeders from a short step ladder. and says she has not lost any birds lately.