Photo: Ivar Leidus — CC BY-SA 4.0 · source
Survives zone 3 through 9
Harvest calendar
Best planted in early spring after your last frost, or in fall before the ground freezes, depending on your climate.
Not a wild species but an 18th-century hybrid of the South American beach strawberry and the North American Virginia strawberry, first arising in Brittany, France — virtually all commercial strawberries grown today descend from this original cross.
- Hardiness
- Zone 3–9
- Habit
- Groundcover
- Edible part
- Fruit
- Ripens
- June–July
- Mature size
- Low rosette 15–30 cm, spreading by runners; excellent in containers
- Light
- Full sun (6+ h for good fruit set)
- Soil pH
- 6.0–7.0 (near-neutral)
- Environment
- Garden origin
- Native range
- A garden-origin hybrid with no natural range — first bred in Brittany, France around the 1750s, after the Chilean beach strawberry (introduced to France in 1714) was accidentally cross-pollinated by the North American Virginia strawberry growing nearby, yielding larger-fruited seedlings that became the modern garden strawberry.
- Status
- Cultivated
- Years to fruit
- Same year
- Growth speed
- Medium; plants are high-maintenance and productivity typically declines after 3–4 years, prompting replacement.
- Spacing
- 60 cm (24 in) apart — about 2.8 per m² (2.6 per 10 sq ft)
- Leaf shape
- Dark green trifoliate leaves 2.5–7.5 cm, with paler, hairy undersides and toothed margins, arranged in a basal rosette.
- Root system
- Shallow-rooted — irrigation is recommended to penetrate only about 15–20 cm of soil, reflecting the limited root depth.
- Fruit description
- Red, sweet, fleshy fruit roughly 2.5–7.5 cm long, with the true fruits — tiny seed-like achenes — studding the surface.
- Propagation
- Almost exclusively by runners, which root readily and are cut and transplanted; commercial production also uses tissue-cultured plug plants from micropropagated mother stock.
- Pollination
- Hermaphrodite and self-fertile in most cultivars, so a single plant can set fruit alone; cross-pollination between different cultivars has been shown to improve fruit size and shape even though it isn't strictly required, and some specialty types (like white 'pineberries') need a separate variety nearby.
The edible parts listed above are a starting point, not a field guide. Identify a plant with certainty — ideally against a local authority — before eating any part of it, and read the full disclaimer. Spotted something wrong? Report it.
Growing guide
Fertilizing. A concrete feeding program is documented: a balanced fertilizer worked in before planting, a nitrogen boost if plants look pale about a month in, and another balanced feed in late winter of subsequent years.
How it spreads. Spreads by runners that root easily at nodes; in matted-row systems, first-season runners are deliberately allowed to fill in and form a continuous bed.
Growing tips. Removing first-year blooms lets plants establish before fruiting, and replacing plantings every 3–4 years counters declining productivity; needs about 1–1.5 in of water a week, since the root system is shallow.
Grow journal
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