japanese blueberry trees near pool

akat

I am a homeowner and have recently planted two Japanese blueberry trees in my yard. I planted them about 18 feet away from the wall of the pool and think I may have made a mistake since they grow so large. Will the pool be safe from their root systems once they get larger?

Eric Frei

If it's Elaeocarpus Decipiens I'd say all is OK at that distance.

Whilst roots may travel out to the wall of the pool once contact is made they'll go sideways and follw it around.

You could insert a root barrier between the pool and tree, most tree roots are concentrated in the first 1' of soil, so if you made a thin slot int he ground or even trenched say 2' deep and inserted a plastic root barrier then back filled etc it will help prevent roots traveling there.

__________________

kimj

We bought 3 of the Japanese Blueberry "Shogun" variety. We have a 7' clearance from the edge of our pool to our wood fence. We were told we could keep these trimmed at 8'-9' and it would be fine. Is that possible?

Thanks
Kim

Eric Frei

What is the maximum ht and spread untrimmed?

__________________

kimj

They are telling us it has moderate growing up to 40 to 60 ft. tall, 20 to 30 ft. wide.

Eric Frei

Bugger that for a joke, wrong advice!

Try to find a tree where it's full size fits that space. Trimming is not on, you'll end up trying to hedge clip that monster, then dry dead leaves etc will blow around and so on...

Hedges and pools together = a lot of work.

Real poor advice. Where you top it will become a dozen of new growth and they will grow faster and more abundant than the unclipped specimen, that's how hedges work.

__________________