Blueberry Early 'New Hanover'

• While tolerant of shade, blueberries crop better in the sun.
• Cover plants with netting when in fruit, otherwise you'll just end up feeding the birds!

• Plant in well-drained, acidic soil in a sunny, sheltered spot.
• If your garden soil has a pH over 5.5, your blueberry is best grown in a pot, in ericaceous soil. Keep well-watered and don’t allow the soil to dry out.
• Water blueberries with rainwater if you can as tap water will gradually raise pH levels.
• Feed every month with a liquid fertiliser for ericaceous (lime-hating) plants.
• If growing blueberries in the garden, add plenty of organic matter such as pine needles or composted conifer clippings. Avoid farmyard manure as it will scorch the roots.
• Pruning is rarely needed in the first two years. After that prune in late Feb to early March, aiming to remove a proportion of old wood every year. Two year-old wood is the most productive.
• Pick over the plants several times as not all the fruit ripens at the same time.
• Take out any damaged, dead, and diseased wood and prune out low branches that will lie on the ground when full of fruit.
• Fruits can be left on the bush for a few more days after they turn blue for a more intense and complex flavour, when they'll also easily pull away from the cluster.
• Although self fertile and able to produce a good crop on their own, blueberries yield much more heavily if planted near another one.

Our experienced team at the nursery will always carefully package and send your plants nursery fresh in the perfect condition to thrive once you receive and plant them. Although most plants are extremely tough and will not be affected by all but the most extreme of weather conditions, we always avoid dispatching the most perishable plants if extreme frosts or heat is forecast. We also avoid dispatching orders over Bank Holiday weekends.

Please allow us 3-5 working days to dispatch your order. If you have ordered a 'pre-order' item, these will be sent out as soon as possible after the quoted dispatch date and we generally ship your entire order with any pre-ordered items. Once your order has been dispatched, we will send you an email with details on how you can track it.

We send most of our orders via a fully tracked courier service with Yodel. We will send you a tracking link as soon as your order has been dispatched. To avoid perishable items being stuck at depots and deteriorating, we will not require a signature on delivery, and we ask out couriers to leave your item in a safe place ad your delivery address.

*Please note, once your item has been delivered, we cannot be held responsible for loss or theft from your delivery address. If you have delivery instruction and require our courier to leave your item in a specific place, please let us know - there is an option to leave a message for the courier at the checkout.

For smaller and single-item orders, we may send these via the post with Royal Mail - Tracking will not be available for orders sent via this method.

**Please note, we cannot guarantee delivery on a certain day or time. Delivery to outlying postcode areas may take 1-2 days longer, dependent on your location.