Hillside blueberry

Photo: Eric Hunt — CC BY-SA 4.0 · source

Survives zone 5 through 9

Harvest calendar

Best planted in early spring after your last frost, or in fall before the ground freezes, depending on your climate.

Also called early lowbush blueberry — a dry-woodland species of rocky or sandy, acidic ground. Berry is edible and sweet but regarded as somewhat bland and mealy compared to cultivated blueberries.

Hardiness

Zone 5–9

Habit

Shrub

Edible part

Fruit

Ripens

June–July

Mature size

Low, 0.6–0.9 m (2–3 ft) tall and wide

Light

Full sun, tolerates part shade

Soil pH

4.0–5.5 (strongly acid)

Environment

Temperate

Native range

Central Canada and the central/eastern United States — Maine west to Wisconsin, south to Georgia and Louisiana, plus the Ozarks of Missouri, Arkansas, southeastern Kansas and eastern Oklahoma.

Status

Wild

Years to fruit

2–3 yrs

Growth speed

Medium

Spacing

90 cm (35 in) apart — about 1.2 per m² (1.1 per 10 sq ft)

Leaf shape

Alternate, deciduous, elliptic to ovate, 2–5 cm long, pale and often glaucous beneath — the pallid underside the name refers to — with entire or finely toothed margins.

Root system

Shallow fibrous roots in the top 20–30 cm with few or no root hairs, relying on ericoid mycorrhizal fungi for uptake, spreading into colonies by underground rhizome. The clump you see is usually one plant. Keep it mulched and undisturbed; the rhizomes sit too shallow to survive digging around them.

Fruit description

Blue-black, about 6 mm, sweet but somewhat bland and mealy

Propagation

Rhizome division in early spring, or semi-ripe cuttings in midsummer. Colonies transplant poorly as whole clumps; take rooted rhizome sections instead.

Pollination

The flowers hold their pollen in tubes that open by pores at the tip, so it is shaken out by bees that vibrate the anthers — bumblebees and solitary bees do this, honeybees largely cannot. No species-level study found; assume the genus pattern of partial self-incompatibility and plant two clones for reliable fruit.

The edible parts listed above are a starting point, not a field guide. Identify a plant with certainty — ideally against a local authority — before eating any part of it, and read the full disclaimer. Spotted something wrong? Report it.