What would you plant as a groundcover/companion for blueberry?

I'd love to hear your ideas. I've got 20+ high bush blueberries and I'm looking for something that can compete with the buttercup that tries to suffocate them every year.

What do you think of these ideas:
Lingonberry
Cranberry
Clover
And, um... That's the end of my ideas. 🤷

Maybe some short wildflowers only they would quickly lose to the buttercups. I had some strawberries escape and move in under the blueberries but they weren't very vigorous. And they made it hard to weed the buttercup because they blurred together.

You might consider Creeping Charlie. Meh, but edible. Okay as 1/4  volume of a salad. Good as a tea when in flower, with sweetener. It is in the mint famy, so consider it carefully.

It took many years, but it now inhabits a good portion of our former lawn. Less mowing! More time for growing! But I advise against using it in garden paths, unless it is a small garden. I am fighting it. Squash does not like growing in it. Other stuff is somewhat stunted.

Typically, in zone 7a, it blooms for most of the winter. It got colder than usual for longer, this past season, with no snow cover, it waited a long time to flower, but I think it stayed green the whole time.

Blueberry loves acidic soil do you need to combine it with plants can thrive in acidic soil and have the same climate zone. Also they should be aesthetically beautiful when paired with blueberries.

Excellent companion plants for blueberries are:
- Thyme, for example Elfin Creeping Thyme (see image in the attachment). It looks like a real groundcover and should suffocates the buttercup, Also you can add it to the tea.

- Raspberry, ex Creeping Raspberry (see attachment). It creates a very good groundcover and produses an edible berries

- Juniper, ex Blue Rug Juniper, just a decoration croundcover, nothing edible. But it is evergreen and has beautiful winter color (please see below).

- of couse Cranberry .

Before planting ground cover of any type, mulch around the base of each blueberry plant with 4 to 6 inches of an acidic mulch such as shredded leaves or pine bark. Then plant the ground cover, taking care not to damage the shallow root systems of blueberry.

Thanks you for the ideas and the pictures.

Ari Smith wrote:
- Thyme, for example Elfin Creeping Thyme (see image in the attachment). It looks like a real groundcover and should suffocates the buttercup, Also you can add it to the tea.

I have a creeping thyme that is barely surviving it's war against the buttercup but it is not as low and dense as the variety you recommend. I will definitely have to find some of that.

Ari Smith wrote:
- Raspberry, ex Creeping Raspberry (see attachment). It creates a very good groundcover and produses an edible berries

I have been wanting to get some Creeping Raspberry ever since I first tasted it a couple of years ago. That would also look very pretty around the blueberries. It's pretty sturdy to be walked on too. It's a ground cover around some government buildings nearby.

Ari Smith wrote:
- of couse Cranberry .

Hi Jenny,
Could I suggest a mulch for directly under the bushes and then either mowing or animal mowing further out? That would make it look nice and neat and would keep the competition down directly under the bush.

I just volcano mulched my two blueberry bushesbwith peat, over top of rotting citrus fruits.
I'm hoping to stool layer them.
I've tried starting strawberries in these pots, to no avail.
I have grown tomatoes  in the same barrels I grow blueberries in, and both plants seemed happy.

Matt McSpadden wrote:Hi Jenny,
Could I suggest a mulch for directly under the bushes and then either mowing or animal mowing further out? That would make it look nice and neat and would keep the competition down directly under the bush.

I have always mulched but the grass and buttercup take it as an welcome challenge it seems. 😂  So this year I put down a really thick layer of compost with the intension of throwing some competing groundcover on top.

No particular advice here, but following with interest since the buttercups are moving in on my blueberries at the moment! I grow them on mini hugel beds; my soil is acidic enough to not need amendment.
I have found that buttercups on my grass trackways seem to have disappeared after a few years. I think they don't like mowing, since they are elsewhere in my tree field (including my blueberry patch).

Every time you have a "fight" with some sort of "undesirable" plant ("weed") - ask yourself why the particular plant is where it is and what is it trying to tell you. If I were you, I would do a soil test to see what is missing. Is your soil poorly drained (likely)? Is it too low or too high in potassium? What does your "soil life" generally look like around your blueberry patch? Dig up a shovel load or two and take a look. IMHO, the whole acidic thing with the blueberries is a bit overstated but buttercups do like acidic soil so it is obvious at least part of the reason why they keep coming back

If they grow well, lingonberries would make a neat groundcover. Around here (northern Scandinavia) lingonberries, bilberries and a couple other acid-soil berries are so common in the wild that no one attempts to grow them. Where lingonberries do grow, they tend to form quite dense populations. Since they are evergreen, if you got them well established they might shade out the buttercups' new growth in spring? Don't know anything, just guessing.

Also, aren't buttercups a high-nitrogen indicator?

I understand wild violets like acidic soil, as do blueberries. I've seen them dominate shaded areas but don't know how hard they are to get established. I think they would look amazing anyway

Eino Kenttä wrote:If they grow well, lingonberries would make a neat groundcover. Around here (northern Scandinavia) lingonberries, bilberries and a couple other acid-soil berries are so common in the wild that no one attempts to grow them. Where lingonberries do grow, they tend to form quite dense populations. Since they are evergreen, if you got them well established they might shade out the buttercups' new growth in spring? Don't know anything, just guessing.

Also, aren't buttercups a high-nitrogen indicator?

Buttercups inhibit other nitrogen fixers around them and are usually a sigh of low calcium / acidic soils. if you want to get rid of them - you can try simply liming the soil as the first step (which is not what the OP wants in their situation!). Buttercups will fix/store calcium themselves (which is why they appear in low calcium soils).

Well, at least this is what I know