I would transplant now. I myself moved a blueberry plant, and I did it this time of year, last year. It's doing great! Well I would wait till it is dormant, maybe another week. I would leave roots alone, unless damaged. I guess if putting in a pot, you may trim roots, but root trimming is only done to keep plants at a certain size. Done with potted specimens, otherwise I can't think of any good reason to trim roots? Trimming now and planting later is about the worst thing you could do, disturbing it twice is a very bad idea. Top Hat and Sunshine Blue are nice dwarf plants, but any blueberry can be grown in a pot. I would grow more compact plants, often given in the description. Pots need some protection in the winter. Buried, or in an unheated garage. Normal blueberries need big pots too. Use 60% pine barks fines, 20% peat moss, and 20% perlite. If you can't find pine bark fines, use Fafard potting soil. Go on line to fafard dot com, and search for stores near you that carry it. They have a store finder. 52 mix is great, but any fafard potting soil will do. Fertilize with cottonseed meal, or Plant Tone. You can also supplement with ammonium sulfate (be extremely careful 1 tsp/2.5 gallons, once a month for 3 months, don't use till plant get's used to new home). Fafard mix has just about no nutrients except the time release product in one of their potting soil products (still use organics mentioned- you can't OD with organics, and the two mentioned keep acidity correct, very important). Adding a dose of kelp will introduce trace minerals. Full sun is needed for sure. PH should be good if you follow suggestions. Do not use regular potting soil. One alternative potting soil is Happy Frog if Fafard can't be found. Most private non box store nurseries carry these products. This post was edited by Drew51 on Wed, Nov 13, 13 at 9:54

Gee whiz. I'm usually pretty nice but your neighbors are seriously immature -- they've got the sensibility of small children who think the world revolves around their whims. If you're not willing to talk to your landlord, then I think in addition to protecting your plants, some other way of getting the critters directly to them is a great idea. Now trellis store bought is expensive, but maybe if you have help, you could get several real thin trim-type pieces of wood together literally like a little ladder, and fix it up so that it will lead ALL the critters directly up to their balcony. They can have the joy of personally feeding critters and cleaning up after them, they'll love it. Then take some pepper spray (nothing that will hurt critters, but which they might hate), I think you could work out some kind of pump extension, and anything that hangs over their balcony so much as 1 mm, spray the thing above you (don't look up -- there's gotta be a way to do it without hurting yourself!) so the animals will avoid it or at least all the part of it anywhere near the outside. Eventually if your neighbors don't figure it out (even if they do, so what), they will realize that for some reason the animals don't eat out of the ones off the edge and they do eat out of the ones on the porch. So they can just put out food ON their porch, since the critters are right there -- rather than hanging off it to try and 'get it to' the critters -- and falling into yours. They get the critters close up, and you get less hanging over you stuff. That doesn't address where they bury things of course, but it might deal with the constant droppings issue. Give the smallest slant to the 'ladder' and the cats can climb it too. I really like critters and feed them myself but wouldn't go about it in the way described, sheesh. PJ

Funny you should ask. I saw a bird this morning and wondered what it was. Then I heard it say that "sherriee" sound they make and saw her hang around with a male towhee. I don't believe I had ever seen a female before. They have white on the edges of their tails too, like the males. Here's a pic I got of her. It's not the best, but it gives you an idea.

I have a bird table/tray (platform on pole, screened to allow rain to pass through). In addition to a few seeds, I often put out (cut up) pieces of poultry skin and fat, fish skin, gristle, cartilage, fruit, older nuts and seeds, and sometimes bread. I have a baffle on the pole to keep rodents away. Sometimes I put out older butter or peanut butter. On the few occasions when I cook a ham or lamb, I freeze/save that fat (cut up) then later on make a melted, reconstituted "fat/suet block" that I put into a large hanging cage (in cold winter). The fat cage hangs from a tree about 40 feet from the house but in view of the window. The small birds can fit through the wire mesh, the woodpeckers can access the fat block from the outside of the cage. The jays can pick up what falls.