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If you're tired of the mushy lumps or hard pellets most supermarkets pass off as blueberries, try growing your own. Even after the purplish-blue fruits are gone, the plant continues to please with vividly colored fall foliage and bell-shaped flowers come springtime. It doesn't matter where you live: There are 450 shrubby species of Vaccinium that grow in acid soils from the Arctic Circle to the high meadows of tropical mountains.

Vaccinium corymbosum and its many hybrids and cultivars thrive in zones 4 to 8. The 6-foot-high shrub looks wonderful in the landscape and produces fruit throughout the summer. The native New England lowbush blueberry, V. angustifolium, is hardy to zone 2. Since the fruit ripens late up north and fall comes early, this ground cover may have brilliant red foliage and berries at the same time.

The low-bush blueberry is supposed to have the best-tasting fruit, but don't tell southerners that. Down South, the blueberry of choice is the native rabbiteye, Vaccinium ashei. According to Cornelia Boykin of North Carolina's Finch Blueberry Nursery, ''The rabbiteye berries are good and sweet, and the heat doesn't bother them one bit.'' Another plus: The shrub drips with clusters of pale-pink flowers in late spring.

For the cultivars best-suited to your area, consult your local Cooperative Extension Service. Then, in early spring or fall, set out plants in a sunny spot with acid soil (pH 4.0 to 5.0), enrich the soil with compost, and mulch with pine needles or bark.
This article appeared in Garden Design, A World Publications magazine. You can subscribe online.