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These berries are both ornamental and delicious

Sacramento Digs Gardening
BY Debbie Arrington PUBLISHED JAN 30, 2019

Summer Breeze Deep Rose strawberry plants have great flowers as well as sweet fruit. (Photo courtesy Burpee)

New red-flowered strawberries look great in baskets

These strawberries earn double takes. Their red flowers are as attractive as their fruit is tasty.

A new wave of red-flowered strawberries is finding its way into gardens nationwide. They’re grown not just for their fruit, but as a year-round ornamental.

A staple of kitchen gardens, strawberries may be the original edible ornamental. Along a border or hanging from a basket, these little berry plants are naturally pretty with shiny green foliage and jewel-like fruit.

Red flowers add one more dimension to their beauty. In this progression, those flowers are now getting bigger and showier.

Last year, I tested Berried Treasure, a red-flowered strawberry introduced by Proven Winners. A novelty in my community garden, it was a hit with its eye-catching semi-double rose-red flowers and little alpine berries. It will be showing up in garden centers this spring. Details: www.provenwinners.com .

As part of its 2019 collection, Burpee now offers two red-flowered strawberries: Ruby Ann and the new Summer Breeze Deep Rose.

Ruby Ann ($13.99 for one plant) makes an excellent hanging basket berry, crowned with clusters of single deep red flowers. Everbearing, it produces abundant fruit in spring and summer. It’s a berry first; it just happens to have pretty red flowers.

Summer Breeze Deep Rose (four plants for $19.99) is much more ornamental. The double red flowers look like tiny red roses. It also looks fantastic in a hanging basket where its jewel-like fruit clusters can dangle.

“Its flowering intensity looks like a bedding plant,” said Burpee’s George Ball. “The berries are small -- snacking size or alpine – but very sweet. It’s a beautiful edible.” Details: www.burpee.com .

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Keywords:

strawberries gardening Sacramento planting container plants Proven Winners spring garden new introductions Burpee edible ornamentals

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Garden Checklist for week of Nov. 3

November still offers good weather for fall planting:

* If you haven't already, it's time to clean up the remains of summer. Pull faded annuals and vegetables. Prune dead or broken branches from trees.

* Now is the best time to plant most trees and shrubs. This gives them plenty of time for root development before spring growth. They also benefit from fall and winter rains.

* Set out cool-weather annuals such as pansies and snapdragons.

* Lettuce, cabbage and broccoli also can be planted now.

* Plant garlic and onions.

* Keep planting bulbs to spread out your spring bloom. Some possible suggestions: daffodils, crocuses, hyacinths, tulips, anemones and scillas.

* This is also a good time to seed wildflowers and plant such spring bloomers as sweet pea, sweet alyssum and bachelor buttons.

* Rake and compost leaves, but dispose of any diseased plant material. For example, if peach and nectarine trees showed signs of leaf curl this year, clean up under trees and dispose of those leaves instead of composting.

* Save dry stalks and seedpods from poppies and coneflowers for fall bouquets and holiday decorating.

* For holiday blooms indoors, plant paperwhite narcissus bulbs now. Fill a shallow bowl or dish with 2 inches of rocks or pebbles. Place bulbs in the dish with the root end nestled in the rocks. Add water until it just touches the bottom of the bulbs. Place the dish in a sunny window. Add water as needed.

* Give your azaleas, gardenias and camellias a boost with chelated iron.

* For larger blooms, pinch off some camellia buds.

* Prune non-flowering trees and shrubs while dormant.

* To help prevent leaf curl, apply a copper fungicide spray to peach and nectarine trees after they lose their leaves this month. Leaf curl, which shows up in the spring, is caused by a fungus that winters as spores on the limbs and around the tree in fallen leaves. Sprays are most effective now.

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