Jun 182013
Hirt’s Top Hat Dwarf Blueberry Plant – Bonsai/Patio/Outdoors
- Homegrown by Hirt’s Gardens
- In the spring the plant is loaded with so many flowers it looks like a white-flowering heather
- Self-pollinating, only one plant is needed for berries.
- Makes a great bonsai or indoor plant. Ideal for containers and small spaces
- The plant you will receive is well branched, about 8″ tall and growing in a 2″ x 3″ growers pot
Top Hat Blueberry simply has to be seen to be believed. Here is a beautiful, moundshaped, compact shrub that is ideal for containers and small spaces, loaded with so many flowers in spring it looks like a white-flowering heather, followed by hundreds of delicious full-size blueberry fruits that make it doubly decorative. Top Hat is also becoming a favorite of bonsai enthusiasts, since the plant so easily allows itself to be restricted in a bonsai dish and shaped into a decorative bonsai accent,
List Price: $ 9.99
Price: $ 9.99
mediocre plants and no info provided,
Hirt’s is a sorta hands-off ‘nursery’. They’ll sell you whatever you want to buy from them, whenever you want to buy it. There’s none of that pesky ‘hey, by the way, blueberries do best when planted in spring or fall, so August might not be the best time to buy…’ or ‘gee, you’re in USDA zone 6, you need to make sure you choose plants that can handle that climate.’ No, Hirt’s isn’t about helping you buy the right plants, they’re about selling seeds and plants to people either educated enough or naive enough to not need any guidance.
If you know what you’re doing, this is good, because it saves you the time and effort of going to a garden center, talking to the employees, weighing what you want against what they have, and so forth. If you don’t know what you’re doing, you’re going to end up with a lot of dead plants.
Take, for example, the Top Hat Dwarf Blueberry. Hirt’s says in the product information that it’s self-fertile, not requiring another plant of a different cultivar to produce berries. This is technically true, and a healthy Top Hat will give you a few blueberries even if it’s the only blueberry plant on the block. However, if you want enough blueberries to make it worth the effort, you need two plants of different types that flower at the same time.
Similarly, Hirt’s only includes the most vague of vague plant care instructions. If you blithely follow them, waiting a few days to let the plant recover from its travel then plunking it into your garden, you’re probably going to have a dead Top Hat plant sooner than you’d think. Blueberries require ridiculously acidic soil to thrive. Hirt’s puts the burden of research squarely on your shoulders, without even pointing out which plants are finicky and merit some research before you attempt to grow them.
And, of course, Hirt’s plants rarely arrive in good shape. My little Top Hat Dwarf Blueberry plant arrived with dead branches, damaged leaves, and signs of poor soil pH and nutrient levels. While i could go through the return process, my occasional experience with Hirt’s over the years doesn’t lead me to believe that the end result would be the delivery of a healthy plant. This poor sapling of mine is a guinea pig, and given that, it made more sense to buy a cheap plant from Hirt’s than to spend the extra few dollars and gasoline to go to the local nursery to buy a healthier plant. In a year or two, when i’ve gotten the hang of blueberry care and want to put a few into my garden, i will certainly not purchase my plants from Hirt’s.
So if you’ve done the research, know exactly what you want, and are willing to get a malnourished and mildly abused plant, shop here. If you’re just thinking, ‘ooh, a little bonsai blueberry plant, that’d be awesome!’, save yourself the money unless you’re willing to spend a bit of time rehabilitating the plant and don’t actually want more than a handful of blueberries a year.
Was this review helpful to you?
|Average Mail Order Nursery – Buyer Beware,
Hirt’s Top Hat Blueberry plant is a semi-dwarf variety, that will grow to about 24 inches wide and high. It will produce a lot of blueberries if the plant thrives and grows. However, this is no forgone conclusion, as blueberries are some of the toughest to grow of any fruiting plants. The main reason is that the plant absolutely requires a soil pH that is very acidic (about 4.5 – 5.5 pH). Of course, the potted soil that the plant arrives in will be acidic soil, but over time, that acidity needs to be maintained if the plant is to continue to grow. This can be done with a soil acidifer, such as soil sulphur. It is best to replant this plant in a large clay pot if you are going to have a patio blueberry plant. The larger the better, as the larger the pot, the more the roots can grow, and the more berries the bush will produce. To pot the plant, repot in 50% peat moss and 50% planting soil. The peat moss will acidify the soil. If you wish to confirm the pH, do so with a pH meter. Try to get it around a pH of 5. Keep the plant soil moist, but not soaking wet, as the roots will rot if they are continually too wet. Blueberries require a lot of sunshine to thrive, so place the pot in an area that recieves at least 8 hours of full sun a day.
Top Hat blueberries do well in zones 5-7, so the northern area of the US is not suitable for this particular variety. Don’t expect berries the first season, or even too many the second season. It takes some time for the roots to establish and then thrive. With proper care, you will get handfulls of tasty blueberries.
This particular variety is a favorite of “bonsai” enthusists.
As with any mail order nursery, the condition the plant arrives in is highly variable. If your plant is delayed in delivery, or is not packed with care prior to shipping, it will most likely not grow or will be very sluggish. I suggest that if the plant arrives in substandard condition, send it back and demand another.
kone
Was this review helpful to you?
|not for the beginer,
if you want a hardy blueberry plant this one is not for you.this variety dies quickly if soil,water and sunlight are not right.you have to pamper this you for it to reach maturity.
Was this review helpful to you?
|