Pink Icing

Pink Icing is a Fall Creek Farm and Nursery introduction from Lowell, Oregon, sold in the Bushel and Berry patio-shrub line; it came from a 2006 cross of 'Toro' as seed parent with the patented southern highbush 'FLX-2' as pollen parent, and is patented as 'ZF06-079' (PP23,336). It was bred as much for foliage as for fruit - new growth flushes pink over blue-green leaves through spring and summer, the canopy turns lavender in autumn, and the brand describes an iridescent turquoise-blue in winter. At roughly 30 inches tall and 24 inches across it is a container plant first and a fruit-row plant second. It is also unusually self-fertile for a blueberry: the patent records 80-90 percent of self-pollinated flowers reaching maturity, so a single plant on a balcony will crop. The trade-off is flavour, which the patent describes only as mildly sweet.