At present, surprisingly few plants native to this country are of any considerable value as food plants.
It is worthy of more than passing note that aside from the comparatively few nut trees and such bush berries as blackberries and raspberries in this category, two of the natives that soon come to mind as very important on this meager list are both members of the heath family and both also of the genus Vaccinium.
Of these, highbush blueberry, Vaccinium corymbosum, not only holds a position of great economic importance in many parts of the country, but it also possesses landscape value that is generally unappreciated.
Highbush Blueberries From Newfoundland
Highbush blueberries grow wild from Newfoundland to Florida and westward to include the vast area from Minnesota to the Gulf of Mexico.
Several natural varieties have received considerable attention from botanists, but of more importance to the home gardener are the newly improved varieties producing large clusters of delicately flavored berries, often ¾” of an inch across.
These selected varieties have to be propagated by cuttings or layers, and gradually, the nurserymen specializing in this type of material are increasing the stocks of plants to an impressive size.
Blueberries in Home Landscapes
Scarcely any hardy shrub has a more pleasing pattern of branches than this amazingly widespread blueberry.
It is strange indeed that the countless numbers of people who admire the shrubs growing in the wild do not recognize their possibilities as garden subjects, for they possess handsome foliage rarely troubled by plant diseases and insect pests, beautiful branching and framework, and interesting flowers, as well as the luscious bloom-covered berries.
These same features can add interest and beauty to home landscape plantings of several types, and blueberries have a great advantage’ of sharing nearly the same soil requirements as azaleas, rhododendrons, magnolias, dogwoods, and many of our most desirable garden subjects among the woody plants.
Blueberries are even less exacting than some of these aristocrats, for they grow luxuriantly in light sandy loams and often tolerate more moisture at the roots.
Soil Preparation For Growing Blueberries
In general, there are three requirements for growing blueberries in commercial plantations and landscape plantings.
These are acidity, porous and well-aerated soil, and an abundant and fairly even moisture supply.
Under experimental conditions, some of the heath family plants have been grown successfully without acidity, but it does not seem practical to follow the necessary procedures in actual gardening.
Nutrition in this family is very closely associated with root fungi, which assist in making nitrogen available.
These minute organisms are present in great numbers on the roots of healthy heath plants, even small ones, and they do not have to be cultured or added artificially.
They cannot exist in what we think of usually as fertile garden soil that has had applications of lime or ashes, manure, or most of the typical farm fertilizers, as these materials are just as surely poisonous for blueberries and their relatives as they are for the more popular azaleas and rhododendrons.
Shredded peat moss or some other well-decomposed and acidic form of humus is the best addition in preparing a location for growing blueberries.
Growing Conditions and Drainage
The roots of these shrubs are shallow, so the preparation does not have to be done to any great depth ordinarily, but drainage should be good, and a sandy subsoil is desirable.
Lacking a well-drained subsoil, proper conditions for growth can often be obtained by deeper preparation and by using sand, stones, or some coarse material in the bottom of holes to ensure adequate drainage.
It is baffling that while one can see countless magnificent specimens of this shrub growing in swampy ground and other situations where the drainage is poor, attempts to establish plantings of them in such situations rarely meet with success.
Characteristics of Highbush Blueberry
Highbush blueberries generally reach a height of 6’ to 8’ feet, but bushes in their native haunts frequently reach nearly twice these heights.
Their ivory-white, urn-shaped flowers develop in mid-spring, in the special type of cluster which, in 1753, first led Linnaeus to name this new American shrub Vaccinium corymbosum—“the corymb-flowered blueberry.”
The individual flowers are somewhat less than half an inch long but beautifully shaped and of such artistic structure that examination with a hand lens is always a pleasure.
The berries ripen in early summer for 7 or 8 weeks, and if the birds permit, this product can be a tasty addition to the family menu.
Aside from the weeks in early summer when highbush blueberries hang heavy with clusters of ripening fruits, the time of year when these shrubs are truly spectacular is in late autumn.
Then, the foliage turns to pinkish, coppery, and scarlet tones, and this display is breathtaking, particularly when many plants are seen together.
The picture is unsurpassed over a sweep of the mountainside or in a swale where the bushes are growing in great numbers.
Later, in the winter, the color of the branchlets is very attractive and intensifies as the turn of the year approaches.
Uses in Home Landscape Planting
Highbush blueberries are useful in many ways in the home landscape, especially in boundary and enclosure plantings.
Their distinguished habit and line branch pattern commend them also for more intimate groupings around the foundations of buildings, and they look very well with bushy yews, junipers, and other low evergreens.
A row of improved types can serve as a hedge between the vegetable garden and other parts of the property, and with a veil of netting to exclude the birds during the fruiting season, it will serve as a dual-purpose feature, with both food-producing and landscape value.
One garden around a brown-shingled house in the cranberry-raising section of south-central New Jersey illustrates, better than any other, how valuable blueberries can be as landscape materials.
Here, superb gnarled old blueberries, billowing clumps of pepper bush (Clethra alnifolia), and shining masses of inkberry (Ilex glabra) make most of the frame around a rare and beautiful wild garden of pine-barren plants, with bog and dryland species thriving within a few yards of each other in their ecologic settings.
Heathers from Europe, Asiatic lilies, and even rare franklinias, which grew wild in coastal Georgia a century and a half ago, also thrive, making important additions to the picture and showing how well plants from the other parts of the world can be combined most interestingly with the most choice of the natives.
44659 by Ben Blackburn