Big fat juicy fruit, cheerful blooms and self-multiplying, Strawberry (Fragaria) plants are fantastic garden additions and seem to grow in any sunny location!
But, maybe you don't have a vegetable garden at your home, and maybe you don't want to add one now, but Strawberry plants are versatile ornamentals for a wide variety of other uses in the landscape!
Here are some of the prettiest and most versatile Strawberries that go beyond the garden!
Veggie Garden Favorites
Carefree, easy to grow and ornamental plants that produce juicy healthy fruit? Strawberry plants are all this and more! Small-sized and space-saving, Strawberries are the easy solution for container gardeners, balcony gardening and small lots to still enjoy fresh fruit!
- Jewel Strawberry plants are fantastic fruiting perennials that will provide you fruit from summer until fall without stopping! Plus they’re gorgeous ornamentals in their own right.
- Wendy Strawberry is another June-bearing variety with large disease-resistant berries and very high cold tolerance.
Groundcover
Include your favorite Strawberry plants in your landscape as groundcover, because the beautiful glossy green leaves are lovely early spring foliage. Soon after they shoot up beautiful white flowers in profusion and attract pollinators galore. Then the flowers quickly become big, fat, juicy berries!
The hardiness of these great plants and their durability are the ideal hell-strip plant and great edging along pathways and garden edges.
Use as living mulch and plant around the edges and between other plants and between shrubs or perennials. Living mulch acts as a protective layer that holds in more moisture in the soil and decreases evaporation, and adds a finishing touch to the garden, instead of leaving bare ground.
Strawberry plants are the perfect addition offering multi-season interest, relatively trouble-free and easy to grow plants that offer the bonus of fruit for your morning cereal and a whole lot more. Figure planting them about a foot apart for a nice-looking ground cover even in the first season.
- The Sparkle Strawberry plant is a very low-growing and cold hardy plant with sweet-tart June-bearing fruit that is great groundcover and living mulch.
- The Honeoye Strawberry is another hardy plant that thrives in an incredibly wide range of growing zones from 3-9. Sending out loads of runners for steady spreading and multiplying, you’ll enjoy more and more plants as each year passes!
Landscape Jewels
Great foliage, white flowers, excellent fruit, and beautiful red foliage in the fall! Strawberry plants make perfect landscape plants. Don't limit using Strawberry plants to rows in your vegetable gardens. Imagine massing Strawberry plants spilling over your Rock garden, or using Strawberry plants as an edging plant for your perennial or shrub border?
Any sunnier spot in your landscape would be a delicious addition to your Edible Landscape! Use them near your patio where you can see and enjoy the fruit as it ripens if you can beat the wildlife to the incredible fruit that is produced.
You can even incorporate them into a rock wall, soften the bottoms or tops of hardscapes, or even a brick patio where you pull out a few bricks and plant some Strawberry plants to enjoy! If you think about it, Strawberry plants have few limitations so don't be afraid to get creative!
- Sequoia Strawberry Plants are heat and cold-tolerant plants with firm berries that soften as they ripen. These big berries are disease resistant and look lovely as garden edging and ground cover.
- Quinault Strawberry creates a picture-perfect landscape with plants featuring very aromatic flowers, leaves and berries, so they do as well in the vegetable and herb garden as they do among perennials and shrubs.
Pot it Up!
There’s a reason for a certain type of terracotta planter is called a ‘Strawberry pot’! These tiered and sectioned pots are perfect for container gardeners, balconies, patio gardens and any place sunny where you can grow Strawberry plants vertically, even when you don’t have an actual garden!
Great spillers and color, these blooming, trailing plants add greenery, white blooms and juicy red jewels! You can even use these in hanging baskets! These space-saving gems make growing without a yard or garden a snap!
- Berried Treasure® Red Strawberry Plant is a highly ornamental carmine-flowering Strawberry that profusely flowers and fruits! Great in small pots and containers, these are densely growing clumps with beautiful flower color, setting them apart from other white-flowering Strawberries.
- The ornamental and unusual White Carolina Strawberry Plant is a Pineberry that has ivory-white flesh and red seeds instead of the typical red fruit. Highly aromatic and ornamental, these are lovely pineapple/strawberry flavored fruit that are as beautiful in the garden as they are in pots, hanging baskets or in the fruit bowl with breakfast!
Lawn Accents
Let these run rampant throughout a trickly patch of lawn or bare patch of ground to add hardy greenery, flowers and little fruit among the grass in an area where grass may not thrive or be patchy.
Great runners and creeping plants for hills and slopes that are dangerous to mow, spreading and looking radiant without any fuss, mowing or worry.
- Wild Strawberry Plants will ramble and colonize areas with their dainty runners, slender stems, cheerful flowers and smaller bright red fruit. Great for letting take over the bare ground between perennials and shrubs, or throughout your lawn.
Types of Strawberry
Strawberries were mentioned in some Roman writings in the 200 BC time period. The French paved the way in Strawberry production after a French explorer brought the Strawberry back to France from Quebec.
Strawberries are native to both the northern and southern hemispheres. They are grown in every state in the US. Strawberries are visually stunning and they are produced in a variety of sizes, colors, flavors and shapes. The typical Strawberries grown today belong to the genus Fragaria.
Strawberries come in three types - June-bearing (spring-bearing plants) and Ever-bearing (which produce fruits in the spring, summer, and fall). Then there is the day-neutral Strawberry that will produce throughout the growing season.
Heavy crops are produced with June-bearing varieties, and then they finish berry production leaving behind that beautiful foliage for the rest of the summer! Day-neutral and everbearing plants spread their crops out over the entire growing season.
Strawberry Care
Strawberries need full sun to do their best flowering and fruiting. They can tolerate partial shade but will not bloom as well. Careful not to plant them too deeply, water in well, and you are good to go!
They need moderate moisture consistently for the biggest juiciest fruit but are quite drought-tolerant when they need to be.
Many use straw or arborist mulch around their bases to keep weeds down and hold in consistent moisture throughout the growing season.
We offer all three types to best suit your needs. Using Strawberry plants in your landscape provides double or even triple duty landscape plants that are durable, resistant and put food on the table!
So when choosing plants for pots, landscaping or as functional groundcover, don’t overlook these incredible blooming ornamental plants!
Order your quality Strawberry plants from NatureHills.com today and upgrade your garden!
