strawberry planters wanted

yorkieorchid

If anyone comes across any strawberry planters/pots when browsing that are on special offer/reduced or a good deal I would really appreciate it if you could spare a minute to let me know please. Looking for 2 to plant up and give as gifts. Many thanks. X

DaftyDuck

They'll crop up in Homebase massively reduced in price. Picked up a few glazed blue ones for two quid each last year. Be warned, pretty though they are, they are seldom big enough for growing decent strawbs.

wallbash

yorkieorchid wrote: »

If anyone comes across any strawberry planters/pots when browsing that are on special offer/reduced or a good deal I would really appreciate it if you could spare a minute to let me know please. Looking for 2 to plant up and give as gifts. Many thanks. X

You fail to have listened to Gardeners Question time this week, the
strawberry planters/pots took a bashing from the team. Doesn't stop you giving as a present ...just not to any one who listens to GQT

Seakay

I haven't heard it yet - were they all no good? What did they suggest for growing strawberries?

wallbash

Seakay wrote: »

I haven't heard it yet - were they all no good? What did they suggest for growing strawberries?

Problem was that in planter each plant had less room/ soil.
More of a success spread out in soil, or one in a large pot.

safestored4

I bought a quite expensive one a few years ago and it was a disaster. I now use it for trailing annuals such as lobelia around the side topped off with a cucumber, for which it is fine. A couple of years later I got an allotment, made a strawberry bed, and quickly realised that a planter could never accommodate the expansive root growth of strawberries.

A._Badger

I'm afraid I have to join the chorus of doom on this one. I've tried several over the years and none has worked. The problem, as others have said, is insufficient root space.

yorkieorchid

Thank you all for the advice, will have a rethink.

DaftyDuck

You can use the planters quite successfully.... (Here we go, last week I dissed the RHS, this week, it's Gardener's Question Time :eek: I really am living on borrowed time here ......... )

Well, I do, and get good results... BUT...

I'm not using them for "normal" strawberries, but for the patio or the everlasting type. They are smaller plants, grow faster, and have generally smaller fruit. That means I replant them every year with new plants (or at least I try to remember...), and crop the plants regularly throughout the year, keeping the plant small.

Varieties I grow like this successfully... Fragoo (red & wjite), Calypso, and... (off to find another of my OCD lists of plants...) I'll edit it in for anyone to read...OK, Albion that does OK in the pots.

So, the first bunch, Red Gauntlet down to Darselect, they'll grow OK in a planter for the first year, but in the second, they'll crop less well - planted in a bed, or a LARGE flowerpot, they'll give a better crop second & third year... The lower ones, Albion to Calypso, they do OK in the planters, even in the following years, being smaller plants with smaller fruits. They do probably still do better in a large pot, or in a bed. Elsanta is somewhat in the middle. Will work in a planter... ish...

List follows... formatting not carried across properly....

Red Gauntlet large crop, vivid red, medium fruit, fresh taste, older, flavour less good, 2nd crop Sept
Christine early variety, large crop, glossy round fruit, superb flavour
Honeoye early variety, medium crops, pale red round fruit, amazing flavour
Sonata large, firm even-shaped fruit, great for hanging baskets, pots or in ground (jun-july)
Darselect good, sweet flavour, aromatic fragrance, hanging baskets, pots or in ground (jun-july)
Elsanta juicy, sweet, can freeze, baskets, pots or in ground (jun-july) (disease resistance poor)
Albion medium-sized red fruit, outstanding flavour & aroma, compact, baskets etc (jun-sept)
Fragoo Everwhite ever bearer, all-year-round
Fragoo Everred ever bearer, all-year-round
Calypso Patio strawberry, in planters, tasty, but not large crop.

REEN

I can't plant strawberries out in the ground because of the local cats so I have to buy them, but I have two planters with the pink and red flowered ones which look pretty. They don't do as well but I love the odd sun-warmed strawberry on a summer day!

I have seen the planters with lewisias in them looking lovely.

[Deleted User]

I grow calypso, sonata, alice, mara des bois and gariguette. I used to use strawberry planters, the ones that contain 3 plants on a layer and which stack. I got fed up with them, the constant watering etc and I threw 6 sets of these planters out they come in sets of 3). I did use them for years but I had a much better result with a ken muir tabletop system, until I noticed that plants were dying and then found that the grobags were full of vine weevil

I have modified all my methods this year 10 new runners are happily growing in a raised allotment bed and the others have been repotted in new soil, one to a patiogro trough and 8 of these troughs to a patiogro stand, I have two stands
http://www.internetgardener.co.uk/category/patio-planting/filter_brand_patio-gro_3688

imo strawberry plants need much more rooting space than is afforded by strawberry planters and that includes the tabletop growbgs, commercial growers use them but they have automated watering etc