Alpine/woodland strawberries

[GreenThumbGal_07]

Years ago I grew "Alexandria" alpine strawberries from seed; they flourished in filtered shade under the Hollywood juniper near the front porch.


Some years later, I grew "Charles V" alpine strawberries from plants, these were available from the now-defunct Shepherd's Garden Seeds (it's now Renee's Gardens, same owner, but a different selection. No strawberries at the moment).


The "Charles V" have small but intensely delicious and fragrant red fruit. Fortunately the plants reseeded easily and I was able to keep the plants going for years.


A few years ago I let the plants peter out, but I did save and freeze some of the ripe berries.


So, this spring I took one of the berries (stored in the freezer), scraped the seeds off and started new plants. They're pretty small now but I hope to have a few in the ground by summer and maybe give a few away also.


"Charles V" is a hard-to-find cultivar of Fragaria vesca. I've seen it mentioned in very few places.


I did run across a source for alpine strawberry seeds, thestrawberrystore.com. Lots of varieties there.


GTG