Re: Strawberries
At 02:26 PM 9/19/1999 EDT, you wrote:
>In a message dated 9/19/99 11:11:43 AM EST, nsterman@mindsovermatter.com
>writes:
>
><< Anyway, my point is, I was was out in the garden this
> morning and the California poppies have already sprouted! I've never seen
> them sprout before November before. >>
>
>Nan:
>
>Sorry I can't answer your strawberry question, although I have one of my own,
>of which more later. As to the question of California poppies sprouting, I
>find them coming up in my garden all year long! However, I irrigate most of
>the garden right through the summer, so that may be why. They usually make
>small plants, but I actually have a few flowering amongst the marigolds and
>chives in my vegetable garden as we speak. It is true that the main "flush"
>of new growth begins in the fall with the first rains, though.
>
>My strawberry question is this. I noticed a "wild" strawberry that had
>self-sown (or been sown by birds) in my garden a few years back, and thought
>that it was a pretty thing, with yellow flowers and small, attractive, but
>inedible fruit. Now it is threatening to take over the entire garden. So
>far it has only covered a formerly bare, shady place between two sweet
>cherries, but it is beginning to really "come into its own" now, and is
>branching out in every direction. I have had to intervene a couple of times
>to keep it from smothering a particularly attractive variegated Ajuga, and I
>can see that it is going to be a continuous battle unless I do something
>drastic. Like all strawberries, it throws out runners in every direction,
>and roots at every node. The rooted nodes are particularly tenacious, and
>I'm beginning to think of it as only a slightly more attractive form of
>Bermuda grass! Any suggestions? Thanks.
>
>Kurt Mize
>Stockton, California
>USDA Zone 9
Kurt:
Because you mentioned the yellow color of the flowers, I suspect you have
Duchesnea indica, or indian strawberry. This has an insipid fruit and is a
weed in North Carolina. It has 3-toothed bracts exceeding the petals and
sepals. You don't have Waldesteinia fragaroides or barren strawberry,
since this doesn't have runners.
Richard F. Dufresne
313 Spur Road
Greensboro, NC 27406
336-674-3105
