Star Wars Garden Gnome Strawberries Must Go!

Wild strawberry (Fragaria virginiana) doing what it does best - roofing ground.
Photo past times Patrick Standish

I thought that I had it all figured out.

But that's what gardening is skilful at -- Just when you're feeling cocky, it pulls the carpet out in addition to shows you lot who's boss.

At first, I thought wild strawberry (Fragaria virginiana) would endure the response to my prayers. I've been searching for a tough groundcover (ideally native) that would encompass all the bare dirt inwards my beds, block weeds in addition to render a beautiful greenish backdrop for all the other perennials, shrubs in addition to trees inwards the garden.

Wild strawberry definitely excels inwards the fast groundcover category - similar 10-feet-in-every-direction-in-a-single-season fast.

I volition acknowledge that wild strawberry leafage tin display around excellent, vibrant colors inwards autumn in addition to winter. Photo past times Joshua Mayer

Of course, I should convey known better.

Just similar canopy trees planted adjacent to a family foundation don't halt growing when they hitting 10-feet tall, a rampant groundcover doesn't halt expanding when it hits the halt of a bed.

In the representative of a works life similar wild strawberry that throws out long above-ground stolons, it but starts gunning for the lawn or sprawling onto the patio, the sidewalk, the driveway, etc.

Once I realized it would endure a daily (hourly?) project to operate on it inwards bounds, I decided to take it. Since then, I've spent hours in addition to hours trying to evict wild strawberry from the garden.

I know it's a native hither (though I don't think always seeing it inwards the wild). And it's in all probability a lovely works life inwards the correct circumstances, but I but couldn't operate on upward amongst it here.

The wild strawberry fruit is tiny (compared to the typical commercialized hybrid berry that you lot honor at a grocery store, farmers marketplace or pick-your-own farm). Notice all the wiry, cherry stolons that connect the strawberry plantlets. Photo past times espie (on in addition to off)

For those who are wondering, it also didn't yield much fruit. Influenza A virus subtype H5N1 chipmunk (or chipmunks) got most of the fruit it did produce. And opposite to the rhapsodies you lot honor on the Internet, I did non honor the gustation of wild strawberry fruit specially impressive. In fact, I'd tell that marketplace hybrid strawberries are much sweeter in addition to juicier. But I mightiness convey picked my wild strawberry likewise soon. I was pretty certainly that if I waited around other 24-hour interval or two, a critter would trounce me to the punch in addition to I wouldn't larn to gustation it at all.

So where does this larn out me inwards damage of groundcovers?

I'm withal trialing a few spreaders:

- Erigeron pulchellus (rose petty)
- Epimedium x perralchicum 'Frohnleiten'
- Packera obovata (golden groundsel)
- Asarum canadense (wild ginger)
and
- Coelestinum conoclinium (blue mistflower).

I'm also thinking close certainly reseeding, clumping plants every bit groundcovers inwards their ain right. Plants like
- Agastache foeniculum
- Baptisia australis
- Gaillardia x grandiflora 
and
- Platycodon grandiflorus)

And a brace of woodies:

- Cephalotaxus harringtonia 'Prostrata'
and
Juniperus virginiana 'Grey Owl'


I know around readers mightiness experience that I'm likewise picky, that I desire it all. Can't I but surrender this wild goose chase in addition to blanket my beds inwards forest chips, compost or pino straw similar everyone else?

Nope. Not yet. I haven't given upward promise quite yet.