Where to buy VERY mature bushes? (Blueberry, ect.)

I remember a few years back there was some place selling blueberry bushes as old as 12 years. They were extremely expensive of course but it seemed like an amazing opportunity.

I can no longer find the page or anything like it. Does anyone know where to find fruit bushes in the 10+ year range?

Or, if not, where are the oldest bushes you can find..?

I'm open to other types of berries as well. Thank you!

I've had good results with this nursery and they sell them up to five years old for a really  good price.

https://www.finchblueberrynursery.com/prices-and-information

My blueberries usually start producing at 3 years old and really start cranking them out by year five. I really wouldn't recommend getting them any older than that anyway, since older huge plants have a lot of transplant shock whereas younger smaller plants adjust much more easily and will quickly catch up to older transplanted ones.

If you get 10 five year old plants there will be so many blueberries in two years that the birds can enjoy their fill and there will be so many it be hard to pick them all! Hope your blueberries and other berries do well!

Steve

One of my local nurseries sells 5 to 10 year old trees in pots. They cost around $300. I bet nurseries like that exist all over.

I would agree with Steve. Older shrubs go through a lot more transplant shock in my experience, and are a lot more work to remove and plant properly. A plant 2yrs younger often overtakes the elder bush in productivity by the time either start producing again after transplant. The younger plants are also a fraction of the price because they are much less work to grow and the remove from the ground, and pot grown shrubs are almost always rootbound and less healthy in my observation. I tend to get 10x tiny yearling shrubs/trees for 3-5$ each versus a single larger 30-50$ plant.

I have had good luck with more mature transplants.  I do make sure I have as large of a root bulb as possible.

Jane, another thing to consider is dithering. Don't spend too long searching or holding out hope of finding your perfect bushes. If you start now, this year, with some that are smaller and more affordable, they will become what you want in time. If you wait to find or afford them, you are maybe missing out.
"The best time to plant a tree is 25 years ago, the second best time is today."

For the longest time, my mother and I wanted a hedge to screen out our neighbor's view into our yard. They would spend an afternoon sitting on their deck, facing our yard staring at watching our doings, creepy.
The ideal would have been to plant a mature hedge, and be free (from prying eyes) but the cost was prohibitive. Fifteen years later, and we finally had had enough of it and got some bushes on Fall clearance at the nursery (still $25 a piece for 6 ft. arborvitae, in rough shape), and the only way it even worked at all, was that I built up a mound 4 feet higher to plant them into. It still took a couple years to fully block the view. If we had just gotten some 2 ft. shrubs, we might have had the hedge sooner, and for less money.

Hi guys,

Just sharing a piece I did on Choosing the Right Berries for Your Perennial Garden https://www.permaculturegardens.org/choosing-the-right-berries-for-your-perennial-garden?utm_source=Permies&utm_medium=Post&utm_campaign=SAGE&utm_id=Oct+2023&utm_term=2023&utm_content=Garden+Permies  in case it helps you find the nurseries for each berry.  

For Blueberries and Cane berries, I found Cornell CALS to have the best resources for nurseries.  The link is in the blog.

You can purchase 10yr old mature producing liberty high bush plants in Missoula Montana.  I bought several last weekend.  Their 4-6 ft tail in a 15gal and with proper care they'll live 50 years.  I bought several 3 years ago and they did great but I haven't seen them until recently.