guild ideas for blueberries

Thanks for bumping this, I  got a lot of ideas from.it.

Lemon balm is good for the blueberry patch and as far as managing it will grow like a weed but can be controlled by chopping before it flowers ...its great at getting birds and deer away from the berrys.

Just searching through the forums and in an acid bed I was planning on planting fennel, blueberries and lingon berries. I'm worried about the fennel which I have read conflicting posts about with berry bushes. I know nothing likes playing with fennel but will it actually harm my berry bushes? Ph wise this get on......

Molly - I have heard of nothing playing well with fennel, but to be honest, I haven't found that to be true. I've never seen any issues in my beds with fennel, but I've never planted it with blueberries, just in my annual garden beds.

Stacy Witscher wrote:Molly - I have heard of nothing playing well with fennel, but to be honest, I haven't found that to be true. I've never seen any issues in my beds with fennel, but I've never planted it with blueberries, just in my annual garden beds.

Hmm well if it isn't doing any harms to your annuals then I doubt it will to my blueberries. Worst case I can rip them out I suppose.

blue berrys are honey bee pollinated there flowers are small and delicate soo i good support plant in guild would have to mabey have some aromatic protection and or pollinator support soo having a plant that blooms for a extended time during blueberry period with small flowers like lemon balm or hyssop or fennel if fennel blooms during july to august.

So, I have been trying to figure this out for quite a while by searching and I wasn't finding much of anything. So, I decided to do some of my own research and I looked up a list of blueberry pests and found out what predators ate those pests. Then, I found out what plants attracted those predators. Lastly, I searched each plant to see which ones could tolerate a PH as low as at least a 5.5 and this is my conclusion.

I haven't tested them yet but I thought I would share my companion plant list.

Thanks for the suggestions. I’d love to hear back from anyone who has tried the various guild ideas about what is working.

Lingonberry and wintergreen both grow well in acidic soils.  

Blueberries maybe don't need an intense guild with their shallow roots. In PA mountains I saw them growing wild with bracken ferns and wintergreen ground cover. Black cherry, yellow and black birch, hemlock and oak. Princess pine which is a groundcover. I'd plant blueberries adjacent to a forest, in a sunny spot where they can benefit from the leaf litter accumulation.