Blueberries

Sold as a 3-gallon plant, pick up only.

Hardiness

Zones 6–9

Light

Full Sun

Height

4–6 ft.

Spread

3–5 ft.

Bloom

White

Plant type

Shrub

Vaccinium arboreum, the sparkleberry, is the giant of the blueberry clan, a large shrub or small tree native across the southeastern and south-central United States, from Virginia to Florida and west to Texas. The species name arboreum means tree-like, and an old specimen earns it, rising to twenty or twenty-five feet on a gnarled, contorted frame. The folk names sparkleberry and farkleberry both nod to the small, glossy, glinting black fruits, and the plant is sometimes called tree huckleberry or winter huckleberry for the leaves that linger late.

Hardiness

Zones 7–9

Light

Full Sun / Part Shade

Height

10–15 ft.

Spread

10–15 ft.

Bloom

White

Plant type

Shrub

Traditional use

digestive health, topical applications

Sold as a 3-gallon plant, pick up only.

Hardiness

Zones 7–9

Light

Full Sun

Height

4–5 ft.

Spread

3–4 ft.

Bloom

White

Plant type

Shrub

Sold as a 3-gallon plant, pick up only.

Hardiness

Zones 7–9

Light

Full Sun

Height

6–8 ft.

Spread

6–8 ft.

Bloom

White

Plant type

Shrub

A large shrub with glossy leaves. White flowers on racemes. (See HIL)

Hardiness

Zones 7–9

This evergreen creeping blueberry is a North Carolina State University selection from Lexington County, South Carolina. It has small shiny leaves but they are considerably larger than typical for the species. An excellent groundcover for moist sandy acid soil in a sunny of semi-shady location. Native to coastal Carolinas, this species is usually found where there is a high water table or seepage but where it does not flood.

Hardiness

Zones 7–9

Height

6–8 in.

Spread

2–3 ft.

Bloom

Various

The creeping blueberry is the ground-hugging cousin of the fruiting kinds, a low, evergreen, native groundcover of the Carolina coastal plain that trades height for reach. 'Well's Delight' is a North Carolina State University selection from the southeastern corner of that state, named for the late Dr. B.W. Wells, the pioneering North Carolina ecologist, and set apart by small, shiny leaves even finer than the usual for the species. The botanical name crassifolium means thick-leaved, for the firm little evergreen leaves that line the trailing stems.

Hardiness

Zones 7–9

Light

Full Sun

Height

4–8 in.

Spread

2–3 ft.

Bloom

White

Plant type

Groundcover

To 4 feet. Small blue leaves, small edible fruit. (See F&J)

Hardiness

Zones 8–10

Darrow's blueberry is the silver-leaved evergreen of the group, a low, fine-textured native of the pine flatwoods and sandy scrub from southern Georgia through Florida to eastern Louisiana. The species honors George M. Darrow, the United States Department of Agriculture scientist whose breeding work built much of the modern blueberry, and the wild plant has passed its own heat tolerance into many of today's Southern highbush cultivars. 'John Blue' is a North Carolina State University selection chosen for looks as much as fruit, and the leaves are the reason.

Hardiness

Zones 8–9

Light

Full Sun

Height

2–3 ft.

Spread

2–3 ft.

Bloom

White

Plant type

Shrub

Darrow's blueberry is the fine-leaved evergreen of the Southern blueberries, a low, glaucous native of the sandy pinelands from Georgia to Florida, named for George M. Darrow, the United States Department of Agriculture scientist whose work built much of the modern blueberry. Most plants carry the usual blue-green foliage, but 'Rosa's Blush' was chosen for something showier: new growth flushed with generous pink tints that light up the shrub, a character strongest in plants from Highlands County, Florida, and noted among several clones in the North Carolina State University breeding program.

Hardiness

Zones 7–9

Light

Full Sun / Part Shade

Height

2–3 ft.

Spread

2–3 ft.

Bloom

White

Plant type

Shrub

Darrow's blueberry is the small-leaved evergreen of the Southern blueberries, a low native of the sandy pinelands of the Deep South, named for George M. Darrow of the United States Department of Agriculture, whose breeding work shaped the modern blueberry. Most plants of the species carry blue-green foliage, but 'Sebring' is a clone Woodlanders found in Highlands County, Florida and selected for the very small, bright green leaves that give the shrub a fine, tidy texture all its own.

Hardiness

Zones 8–9

Light

Full Sun

Height

2–3 ft.

Spread

2–3 ft.

Bloom

White

Plant type

Shrub

Elliott's blueberry is one of the finest of the wild Southern blueberries, a tall, multi-stemmed deciduous native reaching up to ten feet, with slender twigs and small, glossy green leaves. The species honors Stephen Elliott, the early nineteenth-century South Carolina botanist whose Sketch of the Botany of South Carolina and Georgia remains a landmark of Southern natural history. The old country name mayberry nods to the fruit, which ripens early, sometimes as soon as May in the warm South.

Hardiness

Zones 6–9

Light

Full Sun / Part Shade

Height

8–10 ft.

Spread

6–8 ft.

Bloom

White

Plant type

Shrub

Shiny blueberry is the little evergreen groundcover blueberry of the Southern Coastal Plain, a low, dense native rarely more than knee-high, spreading gently by rhizome into a fine, glossy-leaved mat. The species name myrsinites likens the small, lustrous leaves to those of myrtle, and the common name shiny blueberry says the same: the whole plant catches light on foliage barely an inch long.

Hardiness

Zones 7–9

Light

Full Sun / Part Shade

Height

15–20 in.

Spread

15–20 in.

Bloom

White

Plant type

Shrub

Vaccinium sempervirens is one of the rarest plants in this catalog, an evergreen blueberry known in the wild from a single sandy corner of Lexington County, in the Sandhills of South Carolina. A true local endemic, the plant grows along Atlantic white cedar bogs and seepage slopes where the water table sits high and the sand stays acid, and to grow one is to hold a small piece of a landscape almost nobody has seen.

Hardiness

Zones 7–9

Light

Full Sun / Part Shade

Height

1–2 ft.

Spread

2–3 ft.

Bloom

White

Plant type

Shrub

Deerberry is the odd one out among the wild Southern blueberries, a loose, variable native shrub of dry, sandy uplands, pinewoods, and old-field edges across the eastern and central United States. The flowers give the plant its botanical name: where most blueberries hide their stamens inside closed urns, deerberry opens wide, greenish-white bells with the yellow stamens thrust well beyond the petals, so the species is stamineum, of the stamens. The common name is plainer still, since deer are as fond of the ripe fruit as any creature in the woods.

Hardiness

Zones 5–9

Light

Full Sun / Part Shade

Height

2–5 ft.

Spread

1–4 ft.

Bloom

White

Plant type

Shrub

Small black blueberry is a low, delicate native of the sandy soils and pine barrens of the Southeastern coastal plain, a slender member of the heath family long gathered from the wild for its fruit. The species name tenellum means dainty or tender, a fair description of the fine stems and small leaves, and the common name points to the little dark berries that ripen almost black in late summer.

Hardiness

Zones 7–9

Light

Full Sun / Part Shade

Height

1–3 ft.

Spread

2–3 ft.

Bloom

White

Plant type

Shrub