Some of my strawberry plants aren't flowering!

[Nykied]

I have a mixture of some bare root runners from GYO and some plants from Homebase. They're growing nicely and most have flowers on.

The ones I put into hanging baskets first though, have no flowers, just MASSIVE leaves and stalks. These look as though there's absolutely no chance of getting flowers.

Should I cut these off to allow more air, sun and energy to go to the developing leaves or am I simply being too impatient?

[Capsid]

Some won't flower in their first year, they need to build themselves up as making fruit requires a lot of energy. Were they small to start with? I find that strawberries in containers or baskets don't do as well as those in the open ground. I'd keep feeding and watering them so that they can grow as much as possible for next year.

[Nykied]

They were all the same size, all quite small but some have stayed compact but with flowers and the ones in the two baskets have grown massive long stems and leaves, nothing like the others.

[FB.]

Cutting off any leaves is a bad idea. Cutting off the larger, mature leaves would be crippling to the young plants - the bigger the leaves, the more sunlight they can gather.

Just let the plants do their own thing. They will flower and fruit when they're ready. It is often best not to fruit young strawberry plants too hard, otherwise they never reach full cropping potential in years 2-4, when they should be at their peak.

If they start producing runners that you don't need, cut off the excess runners, which will save some of the plants energy.

[crazii_c]

ive got 5 plants in a long container. These have also got huge leaves on long stalks, but two of the plants have now got buds on them. so i would just give them a bit more time.

[Nicos]

I was wondering if you'd fed them with something different- or the composts/soils were different.
Some nutrients encourage leaf growth- and others flowers .
Just a thought!

[bramble]

Nykied, they may be a late fruiting variety. Don't cut off the leaves, just keep the plants well watered ansd well fed. Strawberry plants like lots of moisture once blossom appears.

[tomsloc]

They need a high phosphate fertiliser.Not high nitrogen like growmore.

[Nykied]

I spoke too soon, one of the baskets now has some flowers. I've put them in MPC mixed with some sand and some watering crystals. I've fed them once with tomato food, just water the rest of the time. And I've not cut the leaves off.

I have cut some runners off some other plants. At least I think they were runners - they were really long stalks with a little bud thing on the end. I wasn't sure if I was cutting off a leaf stalk. How do you tell?