Blueberry plant advice needed please

April 23, 2011 4:54 PM

Please help my bring my blueberry plant back to life!

See photos in the link below. I have two blueberry plants in my backyard. One of them is only half alive. The main branch is not producing any leaves or buds, except for one healthy, beautiful branch that splits off near the bottom.

blueberry plant 2011


What can I do to encourage other branches to grow from the main branch? Or is that a lost cause and my only hope is the single healthy branch? How can I keep it from toppling over?

Additional details:
-This happened as a result of me forgetting to water them for quite a while last summer.
-These plants are in Vancouver, BC.
-I planted them last spring and they produced fruit right away that same year.

Thank you so much for reading. Any advice would be very much appreciated.

posted by cheemee to Home & Garden (3 answers total)

Do you know the pH of your soil? Blueberries need a really acidic soil (recommended pH 5 at least) without which you're going to get diminishing returns. For this reason it's usually best to grow them in containers as it means less soil to acidify.

Regular watering with a bacterially-dominant compost tea will create fertile soil conditions and hopefully out-compete any nasties that might be plaguing the roots.
posted by Kandarp Von Bontee at 5:22 PM on April 23, 2011

Best answer: i can't be sure from even the closest photo of the "dead" branch, but are those not buds swelling up on it? the kind of blurry sort of pink lumpy parts? or are those just places where old dead twigs broke off? if they're actually buds that haven't popped yet (and why they'd be lagging so far behind the other branch, i do not know), then just hold on a little while. if they aren't buds, then lop that branch off. you could pretty the whole thing up by staking the live branch up straight. it'll eventually bush out--check on pruning strategies for blueberries to assist that; you might even want to remove the blooms, as the blueberry council (scroll down) suggests for first-year plants, to force it to put its energy into growth--and, if the remaining live bit gets the conditions it needs, eventually no one needs to know about this!

but to give it the conditions it needs, as kandarp suggests, check your soil ph. you can get test kits at garden centers and it isn't hard to do. if your soil isn't acidic enough, you can amend it many different ways. the blueberry council calls for ammonium sulfate. apparently, pine bark mulch and pine needles are good acidifiers, and fertilizers formulated for azaleas and rhododendrons will do the job as well. also, if you're a coffee drinker, using the grounds as mulch will up the acidity. mix and match the above methods until your soil is within the range suggested by the blueberry council. and if your soil is extremely alkaline, well . . . maybe blueberries aren't for you.
posted by miss patrish at 11:41 PM on April 23, 2011

Response by poster: thank you both for your helpful advice!

happy easter!
posted by cheemee at 3:48 PM on April 24, 2011