Dead Blueberry Bush

[Moopmoop]

I have a small Pink Lemonade Blueberry bush which looked healthy enough until about 4 weeks ago. It's in a pot in the house and it was all green and lovely but now it's not green anymore, it look's dead, just brown twigs left. I think it hasn't been watered enough, I thought you weren't meant to water things very often in winter so I haven't given it much water recently. Is there anything I can do to save it (other than watering, which I've already done)? I don't think it's just shedded it's leaves, looks pretty dead to me

[FB.]

As you certain it's dead? Do the twigs bend or do they snap?
If you scratch off a piece of bark on the lower stem, is it greenish and damp underneath (in which case it's alive).

If you've been watering with tap water, the dissolved salts (especially calcium) will have made the soil its in turn alkaline, which blueberries cannot tolerate.

Alternatively, maybe the soil is exhausted of nutrients - a common problem with potted plants as the roots can't spread out to explore for nutrients.

On the other hand, too much feeding will suck water out of the plant because the soil becomes so rich. The plant then suffers "scorch" (dehydration) with brown crispy leaves and dieback.

[Moopmoop]

I bent them slightly last night, they did bend so that sounds good. It's not a very big plant so it's in a fairly small pot, I think it's time for it to be re-potted into a bigger pot with new compost. I use ericaceous compost and do try to water with rainwater as often as I can. I hope it survives. Thanks for the info.

[veggiechicken]

Hi Moop, I had one of those Pinkberries too. Mine was in the GH but I overlooked it when watering and the top leaves shrivelled and dropped off. I brought it indoors and its grown new shoots below the dead tips. I wouldn't repot yet, until you know whether its alive! Keep it through the winter and hope that it shoots again - maybe from the base.

[Nicos]

Blueberry are deciduous aren't they?...me thinks it's finally decided it's time to drop it's leaves!

My 3 bushes in the garden look like dead twigs now too!

[Moopmoop]

So maybe all is not lost, thanks.

[FB.]

Blueberry are deciduous aren't they?...me thinks it's finally decided it's time to drop it's leaves!

My 3 bushes in the garden look like dead twigs now too!

Yes, my blueberries are bare twigs at the moment.
I don't know whether they keep or lose their leaves when grown indoors or in greenhouses.

However, deciduous plants will not usually flower until a few months after they've lost all their leaves. If they don't drop their leaves in autumn, they cannot flower in spring because the presence of leaves is inhibitory to flower buds opening. That's why certain fruit plants can't be grown in tropical climates, or must be manually stripped of leaves to allow flower buds to open (stripping leaves is not an ideal way to manage a plant; it may weaken it so much that the flowers fail to set fruit, or the fruits are of poor quality).

[sugar]

I have one blueberry that has still all of its leafs, but that's an evergreen variety with some Southern Lowbush genes in it. All the others have dropped all of their leaves as wel :-)

[Moopmoop]

Unfortunately on closer inspection it is dead, dead, dead. The twigs all snapped off when I bent them and there was no green inside. I'm pretty disappointed as it looked so healthy a few weeks ago. I am unsure whether I should buy another. Has anyone had any luck with these?

[veggiechicken]

Did you have it on offer from the magazine Moop?

[Moopmoop]

Yip, £5.60 or something. Any suggestions as to where I could purchase another one?

[Moopmoop]

Ooh just found the same one I bought last time on the plant offers website for £5.60 plus £1.99 postage. I think I'll treat myself to another one and try to look after it better. I quite like plant offers, bought a few things from them now.

[veggiechicken]

Its the same as one I had then, via the magazine. Mine is still alive!!!

[Alison]

Any particular reason why you had it inside? Mine have always been outside and are very hardy.

[veggiechicken]

They're tiny Alison I'm not planting mine out until it looks a bit sturdier and we're over the worst of the winter. There's a photo of mine at http://www.growfruitandveg.co.uk/gra...ml#post1049706