Americans eat more blueberries per head than anyone else on the planet, so we know our berries, and we love them. You might not have the space or interest to devote a whole part of your garden to growing them, but that doesn’t mean no home-grown berries for you. Harvest a crop from just a pot or two on your porch with the handsome Silver Dollar® Bushel & Berry® Blueberry Bush. You’ll be thrilled to eat your very own berries, plucked fresh right outside your door. This variety can be grown almost anywhere, from the garden to ornamental planters, and even without its berry crop it is a handsome plant, with oval leaves and silver new leaves making it look remarkably like a eucalyptus bush – with berries. The clusters of pretty spring flowers are a fashionable greenish-white, and the big plump berries are a gorgeous inky blue-black, with that classic white ‘bloom’ that makes blueberries so unique. In winter the foliage is a rich emerald green, rivalling evergreens like boxwood for a classic look.

Growing the Silver Dollar® Bushel & Berry® Blueberry

Size and Appearance

The Silver Dollar Blueberry Bush is a rounded evergreen bush growing 2 to 3 feet tall and wide, with a dense, bush look and rich foliage. The glossy leaves are broad ovals, 2 inches long and 1½ inches wide, with a short pointed tip. New growth is a silvery green, sometimes with red overtones around the edges, looking a lot like the silver dollar eucalyptus, popular for flower arranging. Older leaves are darker green and through winter the mature growth keeps that rich, dark emerald green without turning purple or bronze.

Clusters of blooms open in April or May, with profuse blooming even on young plants. The clusters of blooms cover all the branches, and each bloom is like an upside-down urn or bell, colored greenish white. This variety crops well on it’s own, with no other bushes around, and very soon you will see those clusters of several tiny green berries forming. By mid-summer they will have grown plump and turned whitish-pink, before ripening to that perfect blue-black color with a white powdery bloom. This is a very sweet berry, with a remarkable flavor like pineapple, and very low acidity. For the size of the bush you can expect a generous crop of medium-sized berries, especially as your bushes grow to their full size. Remember that any berries you pick and don’t use right away can be popped, unwashed, into a freezer container and taken out in winter to enjoy, and not a single berry need go to waste.

Using the Silver Dollar® Blueberry in Your Garden

You can grow the Silver Dollar Blueberry out in the garden as an ornamental shrub, in a pot, or in your fruit and vegetable garden. You can expect to harvest 1 or 2 pounds of berries from a young plant, increasing to perhaps 5 pounds when full-grown.

Hardiness

The Silver Dollar Blueberry is suitable for a wide range of conditions, across the country. It is hardy enough to grow in zone 5, and does just as well in zone 9, needing only 500 chill hours with temperatures below 45 degrees in winter – conditions still met in northern Florida. It can be grown in a planter outdoors all year from zone 6 southwards. We have lots of great Bushel & Berry varieties that are suitable for even fewer hours, and for even colder conditions – check out our current selection.

Sun Exposure and Soil Conditions

Keep your Silver Dollar Blueberry in full sun for the biggest crops and best foliage effect. The soil needs to be rich in organic material and acidic, with a pH value that is no more than 5.5. You need a good supply of water too, as this plant is not drought resistant, and needs soil that is steadily moist. If your garden soil is not suitable, it is ideal for container growing. Use a potting soil blended for acid-loving plants like azaleas, and add some shredded pine bark to the mix, and use it as well for mulch on top of the pot, and on garden plants.

Maintenance and Pruning

This plant is generally free of pests and diseases, and not difficult to grow in suitable soil. Keep well-watered year round, and use a fertilizer for blueberries, or one for acid-loving flowering shrubs, in spring and in early summer. This is especially important for pot-grown plants. Make sure your planter has drainage holes, and only let the top ½ inch dry before watering thoroughly. No special pruning is needed, but you can trim a little after harvest, if you want to.

History and Origin of the Silver Dollar® Bushel & Berry® Blueberry

The Silver Dollar Blueberry Bush is a variety of the northern highbush blueberry, Vaccinium corymbosum. It was created by David Brazelton and Adam Wagner, who are breeders at Fall Creek Farm and Nursery, Inc., Lowell, Oregon, one of America’s most successful breeders and developers of new blueberry varieties. Most of their varieties are created for commercial growers, but the Silver Dollar Blueberry was selected with home gardeners in mind.

This plant is a selected seedling from a cross between a popular highbush blueberry called ‘Toro’ and a plant called Bountiful Blue® (‘FLX-2’), created by Paul Lyrene at the University of Florida. Brazelton and Wagner patented their new plant in 2013 with the official name of `ZF06-089` and it is released to gardeners as Silver Dollar® in the Bushel & Berry® range of home fruit bushes created by Star® Roses and Plants.

Buying the Silver Dollar® Bushel & Berry® Blueberry at The Tree Center

These new varieties with dual value, both for berries and for decorative foliage, are the perfect answer to growing fruit in a small garden. Home gardeners are going crazy for the Bushel & Berry® range, and we can’t keep up with the demand. So order your bushes now – go on, you always have room for another one – and enjoy home fruit without building an orchard. But order soon or they will all be gone.