Yesterday I bought 2 new blueberry plants, green and lush from the nursery, with few fruits on them.
1. a climber, 'Goldtraube'
2. a bush, 'Elizabeth'
Elizabeth is a mid season blueberry, as well as Bluecrop. As my Bluecrop failed this year and is reddish I transplant it under a pine tree (left) and add Elizabeth as a companion (right) for cross fertilization. Hopefully the soil at the bottom of my neighbors pine tree is acid enough due to many years of pine needle natural composting. I placed both bushes far enough from the trunk so they get plenty of sun.
Therefore I replaced Bluecrop with my new climber blueberry 'Goldtraube' in the front yard.
I added generous amounts of 'rhododendron sphagnum' in all of the holes, well mixed with the original soil. I didn't have to water because it rains heavily these days.
Now my blueberry row in the front garden is as follow, from North to South:
- North country, planted in May from nursery, produced few small berries in july, red leaves (24/04/2014)
- Duke, planted in May from nursery, late blooming, very delicious big berries in July.
- Goldtraube, planted in August from nursery with small ripe and green berries.
- Darrow, bought at the supermarket in June, dried before summer, no fruits
Except 'Duke' my blueberries suffered terribly from the dry sunny summer we had this year. In addition my soil wasn't rich enough (too sandy despite added sphagnum+pine mulch) and the tap water used to avoid total dessication is too hard.
Hopefully rain or collected rainwater will be enough until next summer. In order to further acidify my soil I plan to fertilize my blueberry bushes with home made compost (too fresh atm), seaweed (abundant on the beach in late summer) and more pine mulching over winter.
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Sheltered by the hedge, and rather close to a giant lilac bush I planted a dutch white currant 'hvid hollandsk ribs'. I had been looking for white currants for a while, because there area few red currant my garden.
I planted a 'Rose de Recht' low bush with pink fragant roses in front of my house (south facing) near some existing roses (unknown varieties). I may try to propagate it through cuttings next year if it thrives, but for now I'll wait and see.
I bought also 2 Hippophaë,or sea-buckthorns, a male 'Pollmix1' and a fruit bearing female 'Frugana'. One male tree can fertilize a bunch of female trees, but I start with one because they are rather expensive and I'm curious if I could grow some from seeds. I could also add one 'Orange energy' female later, if I'm satisfied with these fruits.
I placed both trees along my shriveling sea facing hedge of unknown low bushes, as wind breakers. I live only 60 m away from the coastline and the wind from the Baltic sea is sometimes very strong.
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I potted herbs from the nursery instead of planting in the garden because autumn is approaching and I would like to keep fresh leaves a bit longer.
I am collecting mint and sage varieties and today I added "mentha rotundifolia" (æblemynte broget) and "calamintha grandiflora"(rosenynte) to my mint list. Both pots are on the terrasse outside, but I kept 'salvia grahamii' (solbær salvie) indoors on a west facing window
Finally I re-potted 3 pink flowered strawberry plants in a barrel with our garden soil
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