Thank you EVERYONE for the great advice. I have my half wine barrel on order. I also have 3 bags of leaf compost, 2 bags of sand and 2 buckets of well aged horse manure. I have an excellent source to collect both fresh and decomposed pine needles. I will be mixing a combination of this for the soil. I also have peat moss and perilite in my shed which will also be used. It should be a good mix. I would like to load up on the decomposed pine needle compost but I don't want to go too nuts with it. I will be using a rubber mulch tree ring to rest the barrel half on. This worked really good for my butterfly bush half barrel planter and I figure it will slow the barrel bottom from rotting for a few more years. Once again, thanks for all the great advice. I appreciate the time everyone gave to respond to this forum. Kevin

Blewb: Agree that PH is not the problem, since high PH usually results in yellowing, not purpling leaves. And I also doubt it is an insect problem. It sounds to me more like one of the fungal diseases than can affect blueberry plants. If so, it is not likely to go away spontaneously, and it may spread to your other plants if they are in close proximity. The standard recipe for treating fungal infections is to take out and destroy the affected canes, then treat with an effective fungicide. That is an unusual story about the dieback and regeneration of this plant from the roots. Any blueberry plants that have died back for me have ended up dead as a doornail. I think I would write off the plant if many of the leaves are infected. A new plant might be a lot easier to deal with and cheaper in the long run than trying to treat the one that is ill. You talk of the possibility of taking the plants to college. Are these plants portable in the sense that they are in containers, or are they in the ground? Do a search for "blueberry diseases" and you can find various sites that describe them, some with illustrations. Don Yellman, Great Falls, VA

largaespada: When you order in bare root plants, blueberries or anything else, getting them in the ground quickly is the number one priority. Bare root plants should be in fully dormant condition, with no leaves at all, and should be planted early, which means April at the latest. If they are leafed out when you receive them, chances are good that they will not make it. By leaving them "heeled in" for nearly 30 days this late in the season, regardless of what the instructions may say, you have placed the plants at great risk of loss. Three days is about the maximum I would leave a bare root plant in its packaging before planting, and heeling in is only effective if all the roots are in contact with moist soil. Once the roots of bare root plants dry out, however briefly, it is over for those plants. In spite of these factors working against you, you may still have a few survivors out of 11 plants if you act promptly. Get them in the ground pronto and water them in. Don't prune anything unless you are sure the branches are dead and incapable of re-generating leaves. Slug control is the least of your worries. You will know if you have survivors if any of them eventually leaf out. We have all learned lessons like this the hard way, and the lesson here is: Don't order bare root plants until you have the planting area prepared and are ready to plant promptly. Don Yellman, Great Falls, VA

I had done a lot of searching on this site when I wanted to grow blueberries and somewhere I had read that read leaves meant an iron deficiency. About a month ago I bought a Misty that had red leaves and I gave it some liquid iron fertilizer. Not only have the red leaves turned green but there are many new shoots starting and it seems to be doing great. This is shortly after I purchased it and put it in a 24" pot. This was taken today, one month later. Good Luck, Chris