Anyone have experience with Fragaria virginiana ‘Christina White’? Thinking of trying it in the garden but can’t find much information. the only seller I can find is Edible Landscaping.
1 Like
i have yellow wonder and 1 other white alpine strawberry growing in my yard. all were started as seed and fruited in the same season. very easy to grow. nice thing about alpines is they stay put and dont spread everywhere. very tasty berries also. i made a pie with red and white alpines last summer and it was to die for!
3 Likes
Fragaria virginiana ‘Christina White’ isn’t an alpine strawberry, its a virginia strawberry. alpine strawberries are Fragaria vesca. Virginia strawberries will spread via runners.
yep. i grow both. grew some Rodluvan, a cross of F.vesca/ F. virginiana from seed last year. its from a swedish breeder. it runners and berries are simliar in size to vesca but with virginianas taste. should fruit for me for the 1st time here in late june.
1 Like
so even though I couldn’t find any info from anyone growing it besides edible landscaping, I decided to give Christina white strawberries a chance. I purchased 15 plants and planted them along my north side foundation planting. In hindsight, I only needed 10-12, probably fewer even, as they easily took over the space with runners in their first season. I let them grow freely for the spring/summer of 2022, removing any flowers I could find to focus their energy on roots and runners. in late winter/early spring 2023, I applied some fish emulsion fertilizer to wake them up and now they are dominating the bed and smothering out the weeds. I have 3 haskaps in the same bed (solo, maxine, and boreal beauty) that seem to be doing ok even though they are crowded. hoping for some fruit in the next month or so. I’m no strawberry expert, but I’ll report back after I get our first harvest.
4 Likes
Look forward to seeing how they do!
I will say that I wonder if Edible Landscaping doesn’t have the species wrong, though. These look more like F. vesca than F. virginiana to me. Virginiana generally has less prominent leaf veins, a different, more elongated leaf shape, and is densely but finely pubescent, whereas these look to be on the glabrous side. Also, the picture of fruit that Edible Landscaping has, though very low-res, looks more like woodland strawberry fruit to my amateur eyes. Virginiana seeds are set in pits on the fruit’s surface, whereas woodland strawberry seeds are right on the surface. But I could be wrong. Maybe somebody with more expertise can confirm . . .
Of course, taxonomy hardly matters if it produces—and tastes good! 
Every F. virginiana I’ve sampled has been very good—but they seem like shy bearers. I’ve read that even the selection of virginiana used to make the famous “Little Scarlet” jam in England is not always a reliable cropper.
5 Likes
they are very small fruit but prolific. very difficult to tell when they are ripe though. they get more of a champagne color and the calyx gets a bit yellow then they might be ripe? it is fairly inconsistent. an unripe one tastes acidic like a standard grocery store strawberry. the ripe ones are very very good. the first ripe one blew me away with flavor. a mild sweetness but with an almost artificial fruity flavor that reminded me of cherry or watermelon candy. I keep searching for those ones. kids don’t like them because they are too soft but that might have been my fault as I fertilized them to “wake them up” in the spring and later realized that can result in soft fruit. the one on top is a bit more ripe than the one underneath. very subtle differences. I grow them right against my house on a north west facing wall.
2 Likes
Thank you for the update! I definitely agree with @JeremiahT, the plants and the fruit look like fragaria vesca, I think edible landscaping mislabeled them. Still a very interesting berry from your description!
Are you growing other fragaria vescas at all? There are seeds available on strawberry seed store that are called hawaii 4 which produce white berries with runners that are quite tasty and larger than the berries you have pictured. I’ve been growing them for a few years and really enjoy them. Granted, with a north facing wall I am not quite sure how much sun they are getting and that might be affecting berry size as well.
2 Likes
I’m only growing this one as I read it would do ok in this location in partial shade. maybe I’ll gave Hawaii 4 a try
3 Likes