Recommendations for Small Blueberry Bushes

Mrs_B

I am looking to plant a couple of blueberries this year, but I need them to be smaller/compact shrubs if at all possible - and would quite like good flavour too.

I am considering TopHat as one of the varieties. Is anyone growing this? Any comments on it?

Any suggestions on what my second choice could be?

I have sent myself square-eyed trying to search through varieties and sizes, and then realised that the experts are almost certainly here. :T

Davesnave

Mrs_B wrote: »

I have sent myself square-eyed trying to search through varieties and sizes, and then realised that the experts are almost certainly here. :T

I think maybe few people of us will have the comparative knowledge you're after, and even if we do, 'good flavour' is to an extent subjective and maybe also linked to soil.

I've suffered the same thing choosing blackberries, with size and thorns/no thorns to consider, as well as early/later cropping.

In the end, I just plumped for a couple of RHS recommended varieties, none of which has an AGM. I figured they grow more than most of us, and although their view is subjective too, they evaluate on a range of sites.

The RHS advice on blueberries is here. While you've probably seen it, maybe it'll be useful for others reading this:

https://www.rhs.org.uk/advice/profile?PID=85

madjackslam

I grow five different varieties of blueberries in pots, and to be honest I've not noticed much difference between them in terms of the size of the plant. I haven't pruned them because I wanted them to establish, but, perhaps because of that, they are now huge sprawling beasts, each six feet across. More like a dogwood than one of the compact, fruit-laden bushes you see in the catalogues. They fruit well, mind you, and the flavour is far better than supermarket-bought fruit. However, I suspect that to get a neat compact, plant, you have to prune carefully. The RHS mentions that it's a good idea to have different varieties to improve pollination/fruit, but I don't know how important that is. They are fabulous plants, though, good winter stem colour, lovely fresh foliage and flowers in spring, fruit and autumn colour. And apart from being acid-lovers, I've found them to be trouble free.

theoretica

Tophat say they are self fertile, but mine fruited better when I bought other varieties too. They are about 3/4 the size of my bigger ones like Bluecrop, I like the taste but only one of my four or five varieties is as sweet as shop bought blueberries (not Tophat, but I can't remember which as the tags came off). I have two tophats and one fruits well and the other badly.

So maybe not much help there - but I do advise more than one variety.

Mrs_B

OK, so I have now done quite a bit more research based on what you guys have said, and have decided on a Sunshine Blue (3' x 3' supposedly) which will fit my space nicely. My other choices would have been Top Hat or Blue Pearl - which are around 2'. Sunshine Blue is self fertile - as you say theoretica, I might have a better crop with more than one, but I have also found a dwarf raspberry bush, and a redcurrant, and blackcurrant - and I have decided I want variety rather than the bigger crop of one.