If you’re preparing to sell your home now the spring sales season has arrived, you should not underestimate the impact on prospective buyers of a bountiful garden full of colour.
Even if you don’t have a green thumb, planting a few annuals to fill gaps in your flower beds will give your home an extra lift with little cost and effort.
A popular plant choice as the days warm up is the humble strawberry. It’s a perennial rather than an annual, but it grows quickly and makes for excellent ground cover.
A border of strawberries is a perfect complement to established shrubs and bushes if you want to revitalise your garden before buyers turn up.
And who doesn’t love to pick a fresh strawberry straight from the garden!
Here are some tips for growing a bounty of strawberries.
Chose your perfect variety
Seek advice from your local garden centre about the most suitable variety of strawberries to purchase for your garden. Make sure your choice will produce berries in the spring and summer.
Location, location, location
That’s a property cliche, but it also holds true for growing strawberries. For the best crop, they need six hours of sunshine every day.
Soil quality
If you already have a veggie garden, avoid planting strawberries where you’ve previously grown tomatoes, potatoes, peppers and eggplant. Strawberries are vulnerable to some of the diseases these plants can host.
Compost question
Don’t drown your strawberries in compost to accelerate their growth. Salt in compost can be too much for their roots.
Mulch madness
You can go crazy with mulch because it protects the roots, minimises weeds and retains moisture. Two or three centimetres of leaf compost is best for strawberries. Other alternatives include wood chips, straw and wood bark.
Drink up
Make sure the soil around the strawberries is moist, but don’t feel obliged to water them daily. However, they’ll need lots to drink in the first two weeks of planting. Avoid soaking the foliage as this introduces diseases.