I set out 15 blueberry plants about 5-6 years ago in the same bed. The bed is in full fun, from north to south, two rows of 7 and 8 plants. The bed has a gentle slop from south to north. The spacing is 4.5' between plants and 5' between rows. When I planted them, I mixed with 50% peat moss and 50% existing soil. I did not put on any sulfur. I have not tested the PH for a long time. I mulched the bed with about 1"-2" of composted wood chips. The 5 plants in the south size (the high ground) did really well and they are about 5' tall, putting out good berries for at least 3 years. But two plants died, one Rubel and one Elliot. At first, I thought drainage is to blame since the plants in high ground did extremely well. But the Northland and Brigitta are in the middle of the rows. The Polaris is the 2nd plant from the south and it has not grown much at all. The bed is not water clogged. So I decided to replant the slow growing ones to another location. When I replanted them today, I mixed with 50/50 peat moss/soil and add 1-2 cups of sulfur and a cup of bone meal in each hole. I hope this will somehow make the PH lower and make the plants happier.

I live in Northwest Arkansas and I haven't seen any Berkleys around here. Most of Arkansas is rabbiteye and southern highbush country, so if they're not available here, it'll be hard to find them elsewhere in-state (there are a few nurseries a little south of here that I haven't been to). The way I grow mine is similar to Scotokla - I dig a 2 1/2' wide planting hole, about 12" deep in the middle, then fill it with a mix of 50% peat, 50% pine mulch (sometimes I add a small amount of cotton burr compost). I then mark the holes and build over it with a 3' wide raised bed, about 8-10" high in the middle, flat on top with steep sides. I then mulch over it with a heavy layer of pine straw to prevent it from floating off, with a total height of about 12-14" after I've added mulch, etc. The depth is a bit of overkill, about 2' below the crown, but I find the extra depth helps a lot with internal drainage (a major problem on heavy clay) and provides a nice pH buffer zone (native pH is 7.0). I plant my blueberries about 60% in the raised bed, 40% in the top of the planting hole. This hybrid-combination of a planting hole and a raised bed gives me most of the better qualities of each - it doesn't dry out as fast as a traditional raised-bed (much less a container) but has vastly better drainage and maintains a stable pH better than an at-grade planting. It's somewhat expensive & time consuming to plant them like this, but it pays off with a very low mortality rate. I've found that using a soil-less mix is hugely beneficial - people who amend native soils often seem to struggle with growing blueberries. Keith at Backyard Berries gave me the idea for the soilless mix, planting hole and slightly raised bed; my soil is so poorly draining, though, that I adopted the above method for planting using a much larger raised bed. For watering, I recommend putting in a good rain barrel system - I've recently expanded mine to 720 gallons, used mostly for my 29 or so blueberries. I also use a lot of sulphuric acid acidified water to keep the pH right at 5.0. If you plant them right, keep them from overproducing (lots of gardeners try to get too many berries, too soon, to the detriment of the plant), avoid using nitrate fertilizer and manage the water, growing blueberries is pretty easy.

I don't agree with blanket statements that more sun is always better. While this might be true in places with high humidity and lower elevations, here in the hot arid SW at 5000 feet, there is such a thing as too much sun, and plants which receive a few hours of shade/partial shade always produce better and are less stressed. Plants here that receive 12 hours of direct sunlight will develop a blasted look in the summer where the color is more grayish-green than lush green. The lower leaves get leathery faster than shaded plants, and the leaves rarely provide a flattened surface to the sun, no matter how carefully you maintain moisture levels. At a certain point here, sun ceases to be a critical component and becomes a stress factor. Plants grown in buckets in these conditions do even worse. They dry out very quickly, and the buckets can get extremely hot when placed on surfaces like concrete, brick, or stone. To help, you can put a layer of mulch in the bucket to help retain moisture, and if your ground temperatures are high, you can place the bucket higher up on some type of stand. Regarding your plants, yellow pear does have thinner, more sharply jagged leaves. It's typical of that variety. Under the right conditions, they can become obscenely large. Since you only have one plant to compare, it might not actually be the conditions that are unfavorable, but it could be the individual plant itself. When you transplanted the yellow pear, was it still in any type of peat container?

I have a problem with some sort of larva in the seeds of my sunflowers. They eat the seed and leave the hulls. I have yet to find something that I think would be safe birds and allow the seeds to ripen. What ever it is infests the heads before the seeds form. If you pull on the back of the formed head there will be hollows between the skin and the seeds themselves. If you open one of the seeds there is nothing there. Can anyone give any suggestions. I tried bags but waited too late.