When I first moved here, I was so excited to have all this space. I bought a few blueberry bushes from Territorial Seed Company (you need more than one bush, I was told) and found a good spot for them in my yard. Or, what I thought was a good spot.
(The blueberry bush is the red sticks in the middle of this picture, if you can even see it.) What it turned out to be, as spring kept going, was a mess of boggish wet clay, daylillies, and blackberry vines. This area is at the bottom of my backyard, which apparently could be considered riparian because it is where all the rainwater goes — as it turns out, my back fence runs on top of an underground river and a stormwater drainage system. It’s good for things like blackberry vines and ash trees, but not so much for blueberry bushes. Oops! I clipped the berries off the plant that first year as instructed, but I knew they would have to be moved during the dormant season if they were going to ever have a chance.
Fast forward to late January 2010 … I thought I had plenty of time and suddenly spring was here! Two of the blueberry plants were already starting to bud so they had to be moved quickly. I started out by selecting a sunnier spot up the incline a bit. (I am more aware of sun patterns in the yard now, having been here for a year.) I dug four holes in the clay soil about 18 inches in diameter and about 18-24 inches deep.
I had 3 bushes that were located in the bog, and 1 that had been placed into a wine barrel planter. I removed the 3 in the bog, digging them out about 8-10 inches away from their base and scooping under them with the shovel. When it came time to grab the one bush in the planter, it became obvious why it was a good idea to move them — the one in the planter, from being in better soil and getting better light, had a rootball about 2x the size of the rootball on the other bushes even though I bought it later and planted it later.
Once I had all the bushes, I added them to their holes. I didn’t want to put the same soil back in the hole because it was full of clay and rocks, so I put a nice mixture of chicken compost, peat and planting soil — with a sprinkle of acid mix fertilizer which is made for blueberries — on the sides and underneath the existing rootball. So far they seem to be doing okay, although only 2 out of 4 are budding at this point. Time will tell how they survived the move as well as the deep freeze we had this past December. I’m not sure if I will clip the blueberry buds off the plants again this year. Technically they are much older than a plant you clip the berry buds off on, but I will have to see how healthy they look when it comes time to flower and make the call then.
Major points to remember:
- If you are going to move a blueberry bush, do it in the dormant season (around December and January).
- The diameter of the rootball is about half the size of the plant in bushes this size.
- Unless there is some sort of problem with the roots, just leave the rootball intact instead of trying to tease the mud out of the roots — especially in clay. Trying to remove the wet clay would just damage all the roots.
- Make the new hole about twice the size of the existing rootball.
- Fill the new hole with some nice planting soil, compost, and fertilizer. The air holes in the "new soil" will allow the roots to rapidly grow into their new home.
- Make the hole deeper than the rootball, but then fill the bottom with the soil mix to bring up the top of the rootball even to the topsoil surface level. This gives some extra drainage room in the bottom because your new hole will tend to suck in more water than the surrounding area.
- Unless you live in a mild climate, use some leaves or compost to mulch around the top of your plant and keep the roots safe from frost.
I am surprised that I managed to not get a good picture of the bushes in their final placement, but then again they are mostly sticks right now so it would be hard to tell. I will see if I can get a good picture of it tomorrow.
