Blueberries need pollination or not?

[Babru]

I bought two blueberry 'twigs' from Morrisons this spring and potted them up (Patriot and Elliott). I put them in the cold frame as they had been inside the shop and I thought the shock of cold might do damage. They both have good leaves now and have grown a few inches. No sign of flowers as yet.

I'm wondering, should I take them out of the coldframe if they flower, in case they need pollinating insects? I'm not expecting fruit this year.

[Brack]

They do need insect pollination, but it might be best to leave them unpollinated this year to let the put energy into growing rather than fruit.

My patriot is flowering now, but goldtraube and bluecrop haven't yet done so.

[nickdub]

I agree with Brack - leave them in the frame for now, as this year the main thing is to get them to grow on well and make large plants.

You may want to do a bit of research on how to treat them ie watering with rain water etc.

[Brack]

I dug out a section of the border, lined it with slabs around the sides and backfilled with ericaceous compost for my 3.
Then I found an old soil testing kit at work. Turns out my soil is pH5-5.5 anyway and they'd probably have done fine on our acid clay

[Babru]

Thanks both. Rhododendrons etc do well in my area, so I imagine the soil is fairly acidic. I will make sure I use water from the rainwater butts, thanks nickdub.

[nickdub]

Thanks both. Rhododendrons etc do well in my area, so I imagine the soil is fairly acidic. I will make sure I use water from the rainwater butts, thanks nickdub.

You're very welcome - hope they go well for you.

My garden is on limestone, so I'm giving some thought to trying to create an acidic soil bed for mine - whether that plan gets past the thinking to the doing stage, is another question :-)