Strawberry question

[jonny the plant pot]

Do you cut back strawberry plants or just leave them to die back.

[maverick451]

Personally I leave the green leaves until they start to die back, my rationale behind it is while still green they are giving the plants energy once they turn yellow they have done their bit and I cut them off.

[cheops]

Whether you cut them back green or as Maverick says [I would agree with him] I think it is important you remove them. Strawberry plants are fully hardy and need no protection. Leaving the decaying foliage only provide a cosy place for snails and slugs.

[Jay-ell]

I cut them back green and they just grew back again so now I'll wait for them to go dormant and cut off the dead leaves. They need a period of cold to encourage bountiful fruiting the following year so I cut off the leaves so they don't act as insulation

[burnie]

I tend to just tidy round with my hands and by the winter proper, it's all off without cutting anything, I bin the leaves not compost them, someone told me you can spread ailments, not sure if it's true or not, I just do it.

[Florence Fennel]

Does this apply to alpines? I have some very healthy plants grown from seed, if I just leave them will they thrive?

[JusPotterinTim]

I've read that it's best to trim the older leaves off Alpines in Autumn,(which is the advice for day neutral plants, which Alpines fall into), leaving the newer smaller ones intact.

For the normal June bearing plants I think it's best to give them a trim after their crop and let the newer smaller leaves that come later on stay on over winter.

Mind you I've been a bad parent to mine and haven't tidied them up at all yet, but will do shortly. It seems to be so easy to get leaf infections that clearing away the old an decaying leaf matter is a good idea to stop nasties sticking around to infect next year's new growth readily.