How do blueberries do in partial shade? I just put in 4 plants, 2 Climax and 2 I can't remember right now.All southern highbush varieties.I have room for many more but it would be more shaded by pines.Huckleberries do fine in this condition, but I am new to there cousins the blueberries.
The area is north Louisiana in heavy clay soil.Zone 8 I think.
Partial shade is not a real problem. There's about 30 Feral bushes growing in our mature woodlot, and every year I find a couple more.
They will grow like a weed if they get the right conditions, and cutting them down just causes a flush of new growth...which reminds me. I gotta take a walk with the backpack sprayer and murder the things again. Wild bushes propegate disease, and thanks to some jerk from New England, a couple new Viruses have been going around here.
The ground bieng heavy clay is likely to be your biggest challenge. Not only does the Clay jack up the PH, it makes for an obstruction to root growth and slows water drainage while reducing available oxygen.
Blueberry roots are hair fine and weak, there's a LOT of them, but they are weak, and lousy at taking up water. On a mature bush, the rootball is roughly 2X the size in area of the bush they support. Drainage is critical or within 2-3 days of standing water the roots will begin to be starved of Oxygen and start dying back...which causes bush dieback/poor health.
If a guy were to open up a hole about 3-4' deep and in Dia. and fill with sand/Peat/compost and allow for drainage with a buried tile or gravel drain, the things will do fine on heavy clay. If the roots can't penetrate they will curl back into themselves like they do in a pot which further reduces thier intake capacity.
There's a guy I know in Georgia that put in 5A worth that way. He goes through quite a bit of Sulfur with constantly fighting PH, but they do really well.
The PH issue mostly affects nutrient uptake, and one of the Bizzare attributes of the Blueberry is that they will grow like weeds on rich higher PH black bottomland soil, as long as it is loose and drains well, because of the elevated nutrient concentration.
If you hit yours with a good foliar fertilizer like "Miracid"(Miracle grow for acid loving plants) every couple weeks, you can more than make up for any deficiency in soil conditions as long as they don't get rootbound or drown.
Stay safe!
Dingeryote
