blueberry plants £14.50 for 3

nodwah

To all fruit nuts:- I saw the Ideal World shopping channel tonight and their gardening hour was selling 3 blueberry bushes for £14.50 ( or maybe it was £14.99) + £2 p&P which I think is a real bargain. They're 3 different varieties and the ones they showed on screen looked like nice sized plants - don't know if that's what you'd get tho'. If anyone's ever bought from them I'd be interested to hear from you.
My OH bough 5 blueberries a good few years ago from a specialist nursery for about eight quid each and all my best efforts to propagate them have failed.
We get great crops from them and I feel very smug when I see wee tiny punnets for sale in the supermarket for £2.49 or something.

PS you often see the variety "Top hat" for sale esp in Woolies and I'd say don't bother - it gives the smallest fruits ever

Jnelhams

My local Poundland has them on sale.

Seakay

nodwah wrote:

To all fruit nuts:- I saw the Ideal World shopping channel tonight and their gardening hour was selling 3 blueberry bushes for £14.50 ( or maybe it was £14.99) + £2 p&P which I think is a real bargain. They're 3 different varieties and the ones they showed on screen looked like nice sized plants - don't know if that's what you'd get tho'. If anyone's ever bought from them I'd be interested to hear from you.
My OH bough 5 blueberries a good few years ago from a specialist nursery for about eight quid each and all my best efforts to propagate them have failed.
We get great crops from them and I feel very smug when I see wee tiny punnets for sale in the supermarket for £2.49 or something.

PS you often see the variety "Top hat" for sale esp in Woolies and I'd say don't bother - it gives the smallest fruits ever

http://www.idealworld.tv/csp/isd/ideal/index.csp

item numbers:
715973 (for 3 plants)
715978 (for 2 plants)

site is very slow at the moment and I haven't managed to view the items yet.

Ted_Hutchinson

BBC Growing Blueberries does make the point that these grow better on a light, free-draining acidic soils, with plenty of rich, organic matter if they are to thrive. The soil should have a pH of between 4 and 5.5, similar to the requirements of rhododendrons and camellias. so some of us may find that containers are the only option as chalky soils will be too limey.

Four Blueberry Patriot £18.90

nodwah

Ted_Hutchinson wrote:

BBC Growing Blueberries does make the point that these grow better on a light, free-draining acidic soils, with plenty of rich, organic matter if they are to thrive. The soil should have a pH of between 4 and 5.5, similar to the requirements of rhododendrons and camellias. so some of us may find that containers are the only option as chalky soils will be too limey.

Four Blueberry Patriot £18.90

MMMMM interesting.. do you or does anybody know about the relative merits of the varieties. Is the BBC one 4xpatriot? Coz the Ideal World is 3 diff ones : early mid and late season

My DH has a few bushes already: Goldtraup - good cropper good flavour
Top Hat - small berries not great tasting
Bluecrop - good cropper ok flavour
Collins + Herbert - one of these two produced exceptionally large juicy and tasty fruit but we can't remember which, and we've moved house, dug up the plants so have now lost track of which one is which but DH thinks Collins gives lovely Autumn leaf colour.

We don't have a chalky soil, just heavy building spoil basically - but good garden compst tends to be acidic so we start off with a bed lined with a pond liner with holes spiked in it and add bought ericaceous compost and the as time goes on I add tea leaves and home produced compost and tomato feed when he's not looking!

I just bought some seeds of the wild blaeberry/whinberry so quite excited about trying to grow them (it's some wild, out - there life I lead) esp as last year we foraged a great crop in the Trossachs!

Lord_Gardener

The Giant Patriot is a tasty berry and grows well in a pot. It is compliments other plants such as an Acer (Bloodgood) well on a patio! As linked by Ted, the Telegraph often have good offers for Blueberries.