Blueberries are valuable berries in terms of their vitamin content, especially for those regions that are characterized by short cool summers and harsh winters. Due to its high frost resistance, it is also grown in our climate. What is an Elizabeth blueberry? How to plant it, read the article.
Elizabeth's blueberry: characteristics
The plant is native to North America. It is a vigorous deciduous shrub with a life expectancy of one hundred years. Its height reaches two meters. The branches are sprawling, the shoots have a specific color, indicating high frost resistance. This late ripening crop has small bluish-green leaves. The flowers are small, with a pinkish tinge.
Propagated by lignified twigs. The culture is demanding on the composition of the soil. Blueberry Elizabeth grows in peaty-sandy and peaty-loamy acidic soils. The variety description includes many characteristics, including expected yield,taste and fruit size. Read about it in the article. In the natural environment, it grows in any conditions. These can be uplands with gristly soils, wetlands or drained peatlands.
Description of fruits
Strong berries are distinguished by their large size and the presence of small scars. Blueberry Elizabeth bears fruit well, up to six kilograms of berries from one bush, and for a long time, sometimes several weeks. This is due to fluctuations in spring temperatures. It has a negative effect precisely during the period when Elizabeth's blueberry blooms. The description of the variety will be incomplete, if not to say about the taste of the fruit. According to this indicator, this is the best variety. Berries are sweet, fragrant with honey aroma.
The surface of the berries is bluish-coal in color, has a wax coating. The greenish pulp has a liquid consistency. The size of the fruit in diameter reaches twenty-two millimeters. Berries ripen in early August. Due to the dense skin, their collection does not cause any difficulties. The berries are transported well, they do not shrink during transportation.
Place of landing
To grow blueberries in your backyard, you need to choose the right place for its comfortable growth. It should be sunny, not blown by cold winds.
If the shrub is planted in the shade, a large harvest should not be expected, and the berries will be sour, bitter. In the event that the site has clay soil, it is better to choose a small mound for planting,where the drainage layer will be traced. In the lowlands, Elizabeth's blueberries are not planted, as excess moisture is harmful. It should be borne in mind that the plant does not like drafts. High trees or other shrubs should not grow around blueberry bushes.
Soil
If you provide the shrub with favorable conditions, it will grow well and bear fruit abundantly. The best option is to plant blueberries in acidic soils. If the entire area is covered with heavy loamy soils, their top layer is diluted. For this, peat, earth from pines or river sand is suitable. The earth is mixed with additives in a ratio of three to one. You can acidify the soil with vinegar or a small amount of citric acid.
If soils are depleted, they are fertilized with mineral fertilizers containing nitrogen, potassium and phosphorus. After the necessary recharge has been made, the bed should be dug up well and left alone until the blueberries are planted.
Planting material
Planting is most often carried out with seedlings purchased in a store. There should be a clod of earth on the roots, protecting the plant from drying out. If blueberry tall Elizabeth is already growing in the garden, then you can independently obtain planting material using layering and cuttings of the plant.
It is also possible, when transplanting an adult bush, to separate a small part of it and plant it as a new plant in another place. So you have to spend some time on work, but you will get significant cost savings. This method is used enoughoften.
Landing
Proper planting procedure largely determines the further growth and development of the plant. Large seedlings are recommended to be planted in the fall, and small and weak ones in the spring. Purchased planting material, before being determined for a permanent place of growth, is first placed in water for twenty minutes. Planting blueberries is carried out in holes dug in advance. Their depth is sixty centimeters, and the width and length are one hundred.
The shrub has a horizontal root system, so the pit must match its size. The bottom of the hole is lined with drainage. To do this, use broken brick, crushed stone, porous pebbles or something else that is available in the garden. If several bushes are planted at the same time, the distance between them must be at least two meters. Seedlings, together with a clod of earth on the roots, are placed in a hole, the roots are straightened and covered with soil. Then water abundantly.
The soil around the trunk is mulched with sawdust, wood chips or conifer shavings. The layer of mulch should not be powerful, seven to ten centimeters in height is enough. This will protect the soil from weathering and retain moisture in it. Weeds won't grow as fast. It is advisable to update the mulch every year. If not, then once every two years. Since the root system needs aeration, the soil under the bush should be loosened regularly.
Irrigation
With good care, garden blueberries give a high yield. Elizabeth needs plenty of moisture, otherwise the berries will not ripen. It is especially important to water more oftenplant in hot, dry weather. But stagnant water should not be allowed, otherwise the plant will die. Everything needs a measure.
Water the bushes as needed, avoiding cracking of the soil, but at least twice a week. However, this procedure has an important feature. The due amount of water (two buckets) is divided in half. One part is poured under a bush in the early morning, and the second - in the evening, at about nineteen o'clock. In especially hot weather, spraying the bushes will benefit. This should be done in the evening, after sunset, so the leaves will not get burned.
Feeding
If the blueberry bushes were planted in well-dug and fertilized soil, then in the first year feeding is not needed. Only a year later, twenty grams of the mineral mixture and five kilograms of organic matter are introduced into the soil. It can be peat or compost. For a three-four-year-old bush, more fertilizers are needed: one hundred grams of mineral, and ten to fifteen kilograms of organic. At the end of summer, ammonium nitrate should be added in the amount of eighty grams.
Formation of bushes
In the first year after planting, Elizabeth blueberries do not need pruning. In the following year, branches damaged by rot, diseases, and also broken by the wind are cut off. Such pruning is called sanitary. A few years later, shoots thickening the bush are removed, due to which there is no good plant growth.
About the sixth year of life, they begin to form a bush, giving it the desired shape. Remove all dead branches, sick along the way andbroken. Such pruning is carried out in spring or winter, at the beginning of the season. Leave four fruiting branches and the same number of young shoots. The shoots in the lower part of the bush are removed completely to exclude its thickening and fungal diseases. That's all the basic information.
