It's too late when you can no longer get a shovel in the ground. Note to above statement: If the air temp is below freezing, don't expose root hairs. If you get really late in the year, mulch well. Yes, leaves can work. or straw. or a lot of other things.

Awesome! I just bought 3 bushes. two pink lemonade and a delite. I am like you. I am not sure which varieties are best even though my grandpa grows a ton of bushes. but he lives too far away and can't maintain them anymore. I am probably going to buy a few more varieties and see 3 years from now which ones I like

Thanks, I've seen Nourse mentioned on Garden Web. They have a good reputation here. I'm buying locally first and then will buy from nursuries in the fall to fill in whatever gaps I still have. So far I've bought plants from Ocean State Job Lot and Tractor Supply. Job Lot has Jersey, Bluecrop, and Blueray --- these same varieties are also sold at Home Depot, Lowe's and Walmart around here. Tractor Supply had Patriot and Northland. I passed on Patriot because it supposedly is susceptible to late frosts. I've maintained blueberries before so I know what it takes to deal with an established patch, but this is one planted probably 60 years ago. I've never had to establish one. Look up "spotted wing drosophila", it's a new invasive fruit fly that hits soft ripening fruit. We got it at the tail end of July in my grandfather's patch a town over. It's best to try to avoid later blueberries and fall bramble crops because of this. One thing besides spraying that I've seen helps with controlling these bugs is a healthy hummingbird population.

One other thought on this is that, if one is having to reseed on account of grass drying out every year, one is also NEVER working with ESTABLISHED turf, meaning that it never has a good root system ... and therefore is even more likely to suffer at even minor droughts. Sometimes plants, including turf, must be babied in order to get them to be well established. The "babying" time might be for the first two or three years. If turf requires too much coddling then you may need to move on to plants that require less. When you say move on to shrubs for this area, the devil will be in the details. Personally, I loathe shrubs used in a groundcover kind of way because it adds too much to the maintenance, keeping a mass of shrubs top trimmed. A groundcover or perennial used as a groundcover seems to offer greater possibilities. Whatever you do, though, it'll require some supplemental water until the plants become well established.