An under appreciated ornamental?
We planted blueberries as much for it's beauty as an ornamental as for it's fruit. The delicate lily of the valley flowers ( I was sure I took some photos of the blueberry in bloom but I can't seem to find it- not an uncommon occurrence these days) some with a pink blush others pure white in masses are beautiful. The shrub itself is very nice looking with a layered effect and in the fall the leaves take on a multicolored hue of purple, yellow, orange and red. Yet I see no blueberries as I walk through the neighborhood . I guess I've overcompensated for the whole immediate neighborhood by planting about 20 plants scattered throughout the yard but I'm puzzled as to why they aren't planted more. I guess they're thought of only as a fruit giving plant.
posted by Ki at
5:37 PM
6 Comments:
I love the way mine look, too! I have wondered if either they're thought of as being too "useful," too, or whether the fact that "they" always say you need really acidic soil to do well with blueberries scares some people away, too?
(yikes, that's the run-on sentence of the week... lol)
Hi Kim,
I think you've hit on some of the reasons why bb aren't planted more. Despite our acidic soil it took a while before the bbs started growing well. Then I discovered Hollytone fertilizer! Great stuff and an acidifier too. All our acid loving plants are doing much better and some of the azaleas which displayed yellowing leaves indicating an inability to use the bound iron in soil have done much much better.
It's a shame tho that people get scared away from planting a really great ornamental that gives fruit too.
I've quit being so careful about grammar and sentence structure. Grammar and diagraming sentences were an arcane practice in grade school totally incomprehensible to me. Besides paraphrasing Mark Twain, 'I never liked a person who couldn't write a sentence more than one way'. Run on sentences piffle.
I also planted some blueberries last spring and it does seem that it is taking a long time for them to get going and to protect them from the rabbits I had to "cage them" up for the winter, but its not like they were going to run off or anything (the blueberries, that is).
How's that for a long sentence!
I agree that they are underplanted. Same goes for skimmia. Go figure!
Hi Carol,
It took one particular plant two years before it really started growing well but the fruit was v. large and tasty so well worth the wait. Hmmm, rabbits like bbs? We have rabbits, groundhogs and deer and I haven't seen any gnawing on the bbs altho many of the other plants get a regular grazing.
Now you and Kim have piqued my interest in the longest sentence so I looked it up. And you thought you had run on sentences;) 13,955 words, yikes.
From Wikipedia "...William Faulkner's novels, Absalom, Absalom! containing 1,287 words. Other sources mention a 4,391 word sentence from James Joyce's Ulysses. In 2001 Jonathan Coe surpassed both with a 13,955 word sentence in his novel, The Rotters' Club."
Hi Sandy, I agree, Skimmia is very beautiful and underplanted but I think I know why. We planted both male and female skimmia but they have done very poorly. They hardly put out new growth and have grown very little even with Hollytone. I planted them in semi-shade as instructed in pretty good amended soil so I'm puzzled as to why it's not growing. As for the flowers and berries...nada.
Sweet! I feel much better--I don't think I've ever gotten near to four digits in terms of number of words in a sentence. lol.
I am glad that you said that about the Hollytone and the azaleas. I must make a note of putting that around my rhodie and my mountain laurel this spring--both of them had yellowing leaves this year, and I only fed them with compost.
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