In message , Bigus
writes
Hi

I am thinking of attempting to grow bilberries (not blueberries) in my back
garden in Oxfordshire. I have a conveniently bricked-round, slightly
elevated, area in the back garden of a reasonable size and in a reasonable
part-shade/part-sun (depending on time of day) position. From picking
bilberries, they generally seem to grow on hills (not necessarily high up),
often amongst heather and there is usually a kind of moss over the ground
aswell.
From this I would conclude that they like moist enviroments and I seem to
remember that heather likes a certain soil type, so does that mean
bilberries do aswell?

Yes. They will need acidic ericaceous peat based compost and they may
well be fussy about growing at all in a garden - unless it is very windy
and you can maintain the right balance of moorland water and drought.

You are probably better off growing high bush blueberries, and going out
on the moors to harvest free natural bilberries when they are in season.

If they do require a special soil I was thinking I could dig out a couple of
feet of the existing soil and replace it with a soil/compost they like, but
would that be enough? Perhaps after diggin out the 2ft of soil I could put
an inch of concrete down and then put the favoured soil on top, so that the
bilberry roots don't grow down into soil they don't like!

Any guidance would be much appreciated.

Why do you want to specifically grow bilberries at home? There are
plenty of wild bushes and it isn't a particularly pretty plant.

Regards,
--
Martin Brown