Content
In recent years, gardeners' interest in various unusual designs and structures has increased. Quite a lot of people receive small plots of land, but they want to plant everything on them. You have to sacrifice something, but most of all you don’t want to sacrifice strawberries. After all, it is difficult to find a person who would not love this berry. And its plantings usually take up a lot of space. Fortunately for gardeners, strawberries are among those crops that can be grown quite realistically using various vertical structures, due to their compact root system. In addition, in recent years, many strawberry varieties have appeared that are almost ideally suited for growing in such conditions.
Climbing strawberries, much advertised in many periodicals, are evidence of this. Although such offers from companies are most often outright fraud, they did not arise out of nowhere. After all, the very idea of obtaining strawberries from beautifully hanging bushes growing in various containers on vertical supports is far from new.Any gardener knows that even the most ordinary varieties of strawberries always produce mustaches and often in large quantities, so if you plant them in a tall flowerpot, they can easily turn out to be a green wall. But it’s unlikely to bear fruit. But the emergence in recent years of new remontant varieties of day-neutral strawberries, especially their hanging forms, opens up completely different prospects.
Suitable varieties for growing
Probably, many of you, having personally or through friends encountered the fact of deception when buying seedlings of the so-called climbing strawberries, decided that the dream of a green wall with large sweet strawberries would forever remain in the land of dreams, and stopped even thinking about realizing such a possibility . Meanwhile, everything is quite feasible if you just choose the right variety, plant it correctly and provide proper care. This is not the simplest thing, but it is quite accessible even for novice gardeners if they have a strong desire.
As already mentioned, remontant varieties of day-neutral strawberries are best suited for these purposes. The fact is that they are able to bloom and bear fruit regardless of the time of year and duration of light. Moreover, among these varieties there are ampelous forms that are distinguished by the fact that they are able to bloom and produce berries even on their unrooted tendrils. It is this property, coupled with the fact that on such varieties of strawberries you can simultaneously observe flowers and fruits, that makes it possible to create very beautiful compositions.
The Alyuba strawberry variety, obtained as a result of cross-pollination of the Rapella and Freestar varieties, has fairly long peduncles (up to 30 cm). They hang beautifully on their own, and large, up to 35-40 grams of elongated berries complete the effect of the cascading composition.
Ampelous variety Geneva should not be confused with the ordinary remontant classic variety Geneva. The latter is also good on its own and has enjoyed deserved popularity among gardeners for many years. It is on its basis that the ampelous form was obtained relatively recently by free cross-pollination with the Alyuba variety. It is she who is ideally suited to play the role of a climbing strawberry. The peduncles of ampelous Geneva are even longer; they grow first upward, and then gracefully fall under the weight of sweet and dense berries. The variety is also distinguished by its productivity and early fruiting. From one bush you can collect up to 3 liters of strawberries per season.
With proper planting and care, very good results can be achieved by such strawberry varieties as:
- Queen Elizabeth 2;
- Lyubava;
- Selva;
- Homemade delicacy;
- Crown;
- Osatra;
- Moscow delicacy;
- Honey and many others.
Planting climbing strawberries: a variety of designs
You can plant climbing strawberries in almost any container with a volume of one liter or more. In recent years, so-called vertical beds have become especially popular among gardeners. They can theoretically be made from anything:
- from wooden and plastic boxes and boards;
- from car tires;
- from iron and plastic barrels;
- from plastic bottles and pipes.
Climbing strawberries also look good on trellises, on fences or on the walls of houses.In this case, you will be able not only to get some strawberry harvest, but also to decorate or drape some not very aesthetic corner of your site.
Of course, the most popular way to grow climbing strawberries is to plant them in tall flowerpots or hanging baskets, as shown in the photo.
After all, flowerpots and baskets can be placed almost anywhere on the site, thereby further decorating it.
Features of growing climbing strawberries
In principle, climbing strawberries, or more precisely, their hanging varieties, are just a variety of the most common strawberries, so the main features of cultivation are associated, first of all, with planting them in containers with a small amount of soil. Therefore, when answering the question: “How to properly care for climbing strawberries?” it is necessary to proceed from the following factors.
Suitable soil mixture
Considering that strawberries will have to grow, develop, bloom and bear fruit in a very limited amount of land, the soil must be of excellent quality both in terms of looseness and breathability, as well as nutritional properties. In principle, garden centers and specialty stores now offer a fairly wide selection of soil. You can choose soil specifically designed for growing strawberries.
If this is not available for sale in your region, then you can choose any soil mixture with a neutral reaction and an equal content of the main macroelements: nitrogen, phosphorus and potassium.
Although the best option for planting climbing strawberries would be to compile your own soil mixture, the quality of which you will be one hundred percent sure of. The following recipe will be useful for this:
- Peat soil - 10 parts;
- Chernozem or turf soil - 10 parts;
- Humus - 10 parts;
- Sawdust prepared in a special way – 4 parts;
- Coarse sand – 1 part.
In order for sawdust to bring maximum benefit to strawberries, soak them for several hours in a urea solution (2 tablespoons of fertilizer per 1 liter of water). Then add 1 cup of chalk or wood ash and mix well.
All of the above components must be mixed together, poured with phytosporin solution and left to dry for a while.
Planting strawberries
Growing and caring for climbing strawberries begins with proper planting. It is believed that the best time for planting young strawberry seedlings is April or August. The only problem is that most remontant varieties bear fruit abundantly only the next year after planting. And since strawberries do not tolerate transplanting very well, it is better to plant them immediately in permanent containers. Therefore, for abundant fruiting, autumn planting dates are recommended, followed by good insulation of vertical structures for the winter. Flowerpots and baskets can simply be brought into a frost-free room for the winter - this will be quite enough for a good winter.
But those who want to enjoy the sight of blooming strawberries as soon as possible can try planting them in permanent places in April, using unpretentious and early-fruiting varieties.To increase yield, you can remove the first two or three peduncles and immediately feed the strawberry bushes with fertilizers containing phosphorus and potassium.
This is quite capable of protecting it from unexpected cold snaps in the spring.
The landing process itself is not much different from the usual one. You just need to understand that when planting strawberry bushes in limited containers, you need to carefully straighten all the roots in length to avoid them bending up and to the sides.
Watering and fertilizing
When caring for climbing strawberries, the most important procedures are to provide the plants with the necessary, but not excessive moisture and regular fertilizing.
A drip irrigation device will help you ideally solve the first problem. As for fertilizers, you can go in several ways:
- Even when planting, add a long-lasting complex fertilizer to the soil, which will gradually decompose under the influence of incoming moisture and supply the strawberries with nutrients.
- At least once a week, instead of watering, use a solution infused with green grass with the addition of slurry and wood ash to fertilize strawberries.
- You can also use any complex special fertilizer for strawberries.
It is only important to fertilize at the root and regularly.
Propagation of climbing strawberries
It is precisely thanks to the fairly large number of tendrils that form ampelous varieties of strawberries that their propagation does not present any particular difficulties.
The rest must be decisively cut off, since they weaken the mother plant and, most likely, will not be able to produce flowers and fruits.
The largest of the rosettes, which form the most berries, can be marked in any way and subsequently used for propagation. To do this, in the fall they are separated from the mother bush and planted in separate containers. For the winter, they can be buried in the garden, brought into a frost-free room, or planted in regular vertical beds, not forgetting to insulate them well.
The next video once again describes in detail all the features of caring for the so-called climbing or hanging strawberries.
Reviews from gardeners
Climbing strawberries could not help but capture the attention of gardeners with their beauty and originality, but judging by the reviews, not everyone was able to grow them the first time.
Conclusion
Although for many still climbing strawberries remains an unattainable dream, everything is not as difficult as one might think. And you don’t have to invest a lot of money to enjoy tasty and healthy berries in your garden, which can also serve as a real decoration for your garden.
How to buy climbing strawberry seeds?