• Skip to main content
  • Skip to footer
  • Garden design
  • Container gardening
  • Food to grow
  • Gardens to visit
  • Events for gardeners
Garden Making

Garden Making

Inspiring ideas and information for great home gardens

Home » Growing alpine strawberries

Growing alpine strawberries

By Judith Adam Filed Under: Growing from seed, January in the garden

Alpine strawberry. Photo from Richters.com
Alpine strawberry. Photo from Richters.com

I’ve always been a fan of sweet alpine strawberries (Fragaria vesca, Zone 4), the small intensely flavoured little berries also known as fraises des bois, and often found in European tarts and fruit salads. As well as being delicious to eat, they grow on attractive perennial plants that make a good groundcover, or edging for a border or garden path. These charming plants with attractive foliage and pretty white flowers produce fruits in their first season (beginning in July) when grown from seed, making neat clumps in partial shade without renegade runners. They’re completely undemanding, and only need regular irrigation to stay productive from late spring through autumn.

Alpine strawberries are easy to grow from seed, good news if you’re interested in new varieties becoming available. I’m looking for white and yellow alpine strawberries, which are less hardy than red-fruited plants, but said to have the sweetest and most exotic flavour. ‘White Soul’ (Zone 6, richters.com and halifaxseed.ca) is heavy bearing and makes plump berries with a slight pineapple tang. The same pineapple essence lurks in ‘Pineapple Crush’ (Zone 6) and ‘Yellow Wonder’ (Zone 4), both available at strawberryseedstore.com. They produce long, pointed berries.

Despite their strongly perfumed fruits, white and yellow strawberries are reputed to fool chickens and birds, appearing unripe when at their peak of flavour. (However, they do not fool small boys.) If birds can see colours, they may wait for and recognize red colouration to signal ripeness. But these pale and exotic little strawberries seem to fool them, and are left untouched.

Of course, if you’re interested in growing traditional red alpine strawberries, there is seed available for several good plants. ‘Mignonette’ (Zone 6, damseeds.ca) and ‘Alexandria’ (Zone 6, swallowtailgardenseeds.com ) make continuous crops of rounded, deep red fruits all summer. These could possibly be grown in Zone 5 if given a thick mulch of leaves over winter. ‘Ruegen’ and ‘Ruegen Improved’ (Zone 4, figsforlife.ca) are hardier, and often available as started perennial plants in spring at garden centres, or through plant catalogues.

Alpine strawberry seeds are slow to germinate, but they’ll fruit in their first season if started in mid-winter. Sprinkle the seed on the surface of moist soilless mix in a pot or in cell packs. Slip the pot into a plastic bag and leave it at cool room temperature (15° to 18°C) in indirect light. Germination should occur in about 14 days. Grow the plants on at a slightly cooler temperature, under plant lights or on a bright windowsill, and set them outdoors when night temperatures are 10°C.

When planting them in a garden bed, set the plants 18 inches (45 cm) apart; they’ll form generous mounds the following year. Alpine strawberries are also good container plants, perfect for large window boxes in part shade.

Alpine strawberry varieties are open-pollinated plants, capable of crossing with other kinds of runner-forming wild or cultivated strawberries. If one spring you find that an alpine strawberry has formed runners, there is probably a larger variety of strawberry growing nearby, and bees may have spread that pollen to your runnerless plant. Simply rogue out any plant that has formed a runner. My own alpine strawberries have continued for many years, sometimes sowing a few nearby seedlings, but without growing feet and moving around.

Print Friendly, PDF & Email
Share this article

Published: January 3, 2013 | Updated: January 5, 2019

About Judith Adam

Judith Adam is a horticulturist, landscape designer and author of several best-selling gardening books, including Landscape Planning. She lives in Toronto.

Reader Interactions

Comments

  1. Burbie says

    July 13, 2020 at 10:04 am

    I have my berries planted in cinder blocks that are stacked 3 tall. The soil is that deep as well. How do I prepare them for the winter?

    Reply

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Footer

Garden Making website

explore

  • Books for gardeners
  • Containers in your garden
  • Events for gardeners
  • Food to grow
  • Garden design
  • Gardens to visit
  • Growing from seed
  • How to
  • Plant ideas
  • Prizes for readers
  • Tips for gardeners

Members

  • Member login
  • Register for free membership
  • Manage your email preferences
  • Add your event listing
  • View events you’ve submitted
  • Backup form to submit event

Events for gardeners

May 20
May 20 @ 10:30 am - May 22 @ 6:00 pm

Ottawa Horticultural Society Spring Plant Auction

May 21
7:30 am - 10:30 am

Plant Sale

May 21
8:00 am - 1:00 pm

Ancaster plant sale

May 21
9:00 am - 12:00 pm

Credit Valley plant sale

May 21
9:00 am - 12:00 pm

Durham & District Horticultural Society Plant Sale

View Calendar

Get email updates

Join 9,701 gardeners who get our email updates. We do not share emails.

Check your inbox or spam folder to confirm your subscription.

Copyright © 2022 Inspiring Media Inc. | GARDEN MAKING is a registered trademark | About | Service | Terms of use | Privacy policy