Strawberry plant but no runners???

[donzy84]

Hi everyone,

I planted a strawberry plant back around april time (Florence) and got about 7 strawberries off it (I wasn't expecting much with it being first year) but was hoping to get a few plants off it.

Problem is it never sent out runners??? is this normal I thought thats what strawberries did? The plant is really big and healthy looking, any ideas???

Also what do i do with it over the winter???

As always thanks for all your advice

Donna x

[rogesse]

Sorry, can't help but would love to know the answer too - 3 different varieties of mine has performed (or not) in the same way!

[Shadylane]

I posted a similar question just recently and no one seemed to know - or else they were just ignoring me I've heard that perpetual ones can be a bit short on runners but other than that I've no idea. It's bloody annoying though innit?

[Bigmallly]

It appears strawberry plants don't produce runners until their 2nd year (I don't know how true that is). Check out the thread dated 22/8/09 titled strawberries from seed. There are some comments on there about plants with no runners. Alpines, I think they said.

[Shadylane]

Well the ones I have produced runners in their first year in early summer but I nipped em off thinking it was a bit early. It's amost as if they're sulking cause I wouldn't let them go forth and multiply. Have some alpines too - or they might be the 'wild' variety, not sure - and they ran like crazy - I have heard that some varieties don't though.

[Stacey Steve]

I have some Malling Opals and out of about 20, only 3 threw runners but I have noticed that the crowns have divided.

The other variety (Lord only knows what they are, scrounged off another plot holder) run like mad

[Shadylane]

Yeah mine ended up with multiple crowns - I tried splitting a few of them just to see if that would produce more plants.

[FB.]

I've had some Florence for a few years and they've not produced many runners.
But they seem to divide themselves into 2-4 plants at the crowns, so maybe you can try to split them.

edit:
Strawberries are very hardy if they've been grown outdoors. No need for winter protection if planted in the ground. If they're in barrels and you're in the North (prone to very hard frosts), I might put some bubble wrap around the barrels. Mine live happily in the ground and in small barrels without having ever been given winter protection.

[bluemoon]

Having grown strawberries in the ground for many years with little success, not because they didn't fruit, but because the mice and slugs always beat me to them, I've decided that this year I'm going to put some in hanging baskets. I've ordered 12 and I'm going to use 3 plants per basket. I have no intention of mollycoddling them. As for runners I've noticed that some years they seem to be more prolific than others.

[bharper1]

I bought 12 Marshmellow strawberry plants last Autumn (from Marhalls of course) just to try and see how they were, potted them all up into large 3 LTR pots and have managed to get 75 runners from the 12 plants. Very pleased! I highly recommend them, by far the sweatest strawberry i have tasted.

Also planted 12 Elsanta which I actually got free from KenMuir. Those also managed to product about 25-30 runners

Now i just need more space to house them all...

[Dynamo]

When I took over my lottie in late spring I inherited about half a dozen strawberry plants. I figured I'd leave them to see what happened to them and try to get the rest of the plot into some semblane of order. I am pleased to announce that after a slow start we eventually managed to get about half a dozen punnets of strawberries off the plants over about two months or so.

I figured on moving the plants this winter but I left them to do their own thing in the meantime hoping to get some runners. I only got one though. I didn't want to buy new ones if I could help it, mainly so to reduce cost, but also because these had produced delicious fruit. I dug the first one up about a week ago and because the plants had obviously been there a long time, I cleaned it up and managed to split it into 11 different plants and put them all into different pots. I've since dug up another 2 and now have well over 20 plants in pots which look none the worse for wear so far.

I'll make a new bed for them next year and see how they go. If they come then its a bonus from nothing. If they don't come, well its cost me nowt anyway.

[donzy84]

Thanks for everyones advice. Silly question but how do I know if I can split it and how do I do it? Is it too late to do now?

[Shadylane]

If it has more than one crown, you know the bit where the leaves come from that looks like - well a crown. As for how I'm sure there's a proper way to do it but I just gently pulled the crowns apart. It was a bit of a masacre really, left most of the roots behind - oh well.