Strawberries variety, pot, hanging basket, matted or ribbon rows?

15 years ago

What variety of strawberries have your grown and which methods have you tried?

I'm interested in making hanging baskets of day neutrals for beauty and convenience (no rabbits, deer, or slugs to bother them). Not having to stoop to pick them makes them great gifts for Mother's Day. I plan to put 3-4 in a pot, not 8 like you find if you google it.

I like that both Tristar & Seascape fruit on unrooted runners making a lovely display. We've grown Ozark Beauty since 2000 with good results from our original 2 plants. Originally, we had them in an extra large pot before giving them their own space in the garden. We also have some unnamed plants from a person at the GE swap last spring. I've been hesitant to accept berry plants due to disease, but went ahead with it and haven't had any problems.

I'm hoping that different varieties means we can pick berries most of the summer. I read that up to a quart of fruit can be picked from one plant in it's 2nd or 3rd year of production, but we've not had that high of yield with Ozark Beauty especially when the deer mow them down in July.

Have you purchased barerrot from Sakuma Bros. Farms in Burlington, WA? They begin shipping in February. Do you have another WA recommendation for plants?

Here is a link that might be useful: Strawberry plants

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Comments (2)

gardengal48 (PNW Z8/9)
15 years ago
Personally, I'd not bother with strawberries in pots or hanging baskets unless space was an overriding issue :-) And the runners should be removed from the everbearing or day neutral types, so that kinda defeats the purpose of a hanging basket to my mind. They do make nice gifts, though, especially for those who may have limited gardening space or are restricted to patios or balconies or the like.

Everbearing or day neutral varieties that seem to be the most popular around here are Quinault (everbearing) and Tristar (day neutral). That's typically what you find at most nurseries and garden centers (together with Hood, a very popular June bearing variety). I've never tried Ozark Beauty - the name itself implies an area distant to the PNW and I prefer locally developed selections whenever possible.

Sakuma Brothers supplies a lot of local nurseries and garden centers (they have a wholesale arm) with various berry plants. You will typically find them in February as well, also bare root. And there's probably a few smaller operations that grow and sell locally.

FWIW, Tristar outsells other varieties at my nursery by a factor of about 3 to 1. Smaller berries but a consistent season long production. And excellent disease resistance.
cedar_wa
15 years ago
I found an amazing selection of bareroot strawberry plants a few years ago at Sky Nursery on Hwy 99. There were good descriptions above each bin. I found Aroma which was for a school garden. It has hard:) very flavorful and prolific berries. They are not good for anything other than eating off the vine. I have tried Seascape, Ozark, TriStar and some others, but they suffer when not given enough water. My favorite day-neutral is Mar des Bois which orginally came from Canada in a shared fruit club order. I see that Jung is selling it this year. It constantly has excellent, according to my taste, berries. They are the closest thing to the taste of berries from childhood farm in NY. I am going to try them in baskets because they blossom and produce even when the runners have not rooted. My favorite June berries are Shuksan and Puget Reliance.
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