Northblue has been a great bush for us, we have about a dozen. Consistent, heavy cropper, good flavor and size, have never had any winter damage.
seems to max out at about 1.5-2' for us, but fills in/spreads out with good density.

Northblue is a very good cold climate bush. I agree with windfall rob that is a good cropper with very good flavor. My berry size is medium to small but I don't thin any out either. It is a short thickly branched, wide plant.

This past winter was unusual in that we had very little snow in northern MN. One Northblue and one other unknown bush were the only 2 that weren't damaged out of 33 blueberry bushes. The damage seems to have been caused by desiccation. Bluecrop had about 80% loss of all top growth and the StCloud, Chippewa, Polaris, and Friendship all had about 60% top damage.

Part of the reason that the one Northblue faired so well is that it is an older plant. Older wood seems to winter better. There were 3 younger Northblue that had about 30% top loss. All but one of the 33 plants are coming back strong.

I try to prevent this top loss by stopping all fertilizing by the end of June. Lots of time to harden off. Our winters tend to be long, cold and dry. Good snowfall is critical for our blueberries. Especially the younger plants.

At some point, I'll probably give Toro a try.

Thanks. I've been thinking about doing northblue in containers for peoples patios. I like the idea of leaving them outside in z6 in pots and I bet if kept out of the wind, they'd be OK.

Northern,
when is 1st freeze avg for you up there?