Sun-warmed, sweet and juicy, you’re spoiled for choice if you’re after tempting strawberry varieties to try this year. Picked straight from the plant, homegrown strawberries are generally considered to be amongst the highlights of summer harvests.
Even better, it’s easy to grow strawberries and they are extremely obliging to those with limited space. These reliable and prolific crops are equally at home in the open ground, growing bags or containers, so they offer a range of options depending on your location, soil conditions and sunny spots. Plus, with careful selections of early, mid, late and perpetual strawberry varieties, it’s possible to enjoy them for six months of the year. This is especially true if a glasshouse, polytunnel or warm conservatory is available to extend the season.
Perhaps the biggest advantage of growing your own is knowing that you will have access to a vast profile of varieties and flavors, with far more to offer than the often under-ripe and less-tasty versions found in supermarkets.
Everbearing ‘Buddy’ gives a long season of deep red fruits
Sue Bradley writes about gardening, food and wildlife, and the fascinating people who are passionate about these subjects, for a variety of magazines. She’s a member of the Garden Media Guild and the Guild of Food Writers, and frequently covers growing fruit and vegetables, including strawberries.
Tasty strawberry varieties for a long season of summer fruit
Early spring can be a great time to select and plant strawberries so they can put down roots ready for summer.
The types of strawberry listed here offer options for early, mid and late season kitchen gardens, as well as alpine (woodland) and perpetual (everbearing) types. Find out which variety is best for you – or better still, grow a few!
1. Strawberry ‘Vibrant’
Strawberry ‘Vibrant’
- Flavor: Sweet
- Size: Medium/large
- Color: Glossy red
- Hardiness: USDA 5-8 perennials, 9-10 cool-season annuals
- Best for: Heavy yields
A heavy-cropping early summer strawberry, ‘Vibrant’ produces sweet, conical fruits with an excellent flavor. Once established, each plant will normally produce more than 2.2lb of strawberries.
A key advantage of growing this plant is its upright growing habit, which makes it easy to pick strawberries at harvest time. This is one of the early summer strawberry varieties that has a good resistance to powdery mildew and crown rot.
2. Strawberry ‘Honeoye’
Strawberry ‘Honeoye’
- Flavor: Good, a bit more tart
- Size: Large
- Color: Bright red
- Hardiness: USDA 5-8 perennials, 9-10 cool-season annuals
- Best for: Sharper palates
This early cropping strawberry variety produces large, bright red fruits with a pleasantly sharp flavour in comparison to its super-sweet relatives. It’s a popular cropper and gives fruits that are large and round.
Strawberry ‘Honeoye’ has excellent disease resistance and can be relied on for good yields. After you clean strawberries, the fruits will hold their own well after being stored in the freezer, which is good news if you have gluts.
3. Strawberry ‘Cambridge Favorite’
Strawberry ‘Cambridge Favorite’
- Flavor: Good
- Size: Medium
- Color: Deep red
- Hardiness: USDA 5-8 perennials, 9-10 cool-season annuals
- Best for: Disease resistance, jam making
If you’re after a mid-season cropper that is known for bumper harvests, choose ‘Cambridge Favorite’. This heritage cultivar is known to crop reliably under a wide range of conditions, making it suitable for all vegetable garden types and sizes.
Fruit can be left to hang on its long stems for a good period without becoming over-ripe or going rotten. This is one of those strawberry varieties that produces plenty of runners. If you have a surplus and need to store strawberries, this variety is also popular with jam makers and it freezes well.
4. Strawberry ‘Sweetheart’
Strawberry ‘Sweetheart’
- Flavor: Sweet
- Size: Medium
- Color: Red
- Hardiness: USDA 5-8 perennials, 9-10 cool-season annuals
- Best for: Disease resistance, heavy crops
For anyone after heavy crops of wonderfully sweet strawberries, midsummer ‘Sweetheart’ is sure to be your idea of a heavenly summer. Its conical fruits are sweet and juicy, and its high-yielding plants work well in containers and hanging baskets.
Strawberry ‘Sweetheart’ is a modern type of strawberry that bears fruit on vigorous but compact plants. This makes it ideal for small spaces, so it can be grown as a balcony plant or in a pot on a patio. Good disease resistance is another positive attribute.
5. Strawberry ‘Buddy’
Strawberry ‘Buddy’
- Flavor: Strong strawberry
- Size: Large
- Color: Dark red
- Hardiness: USDA 5-8 perennials, 9-10 cool-season annuals
- Best for: Containers
Some strawberry varieties are just as striking for their ornamental appeal as they are for their edible delights – and ‘Buddy’ is definitely one such cropper. These perpetual (everbearing) strawberry types produce a cloud of pretty pink flowers in spring.
After flowering, this everbearing strawberry plant gives a long season of tasty dark red fruits. It is ideal for container gardening and hanging baskets due to the restrained nature of its runners.
6. Strawberry ‘Florence’
Strawberry ‘Florence’
- Flavor: Sweet
- Size: Large
- Color: Dark red
- Hardiness: USDA 5-8 perennials, 9-10 cool-season annuals
- Best for: All soils, container growing
If you are after a late summer cropper to complement your range of strawberry plant options, this UK-bred strawberry does well on all kinds of soils. It offers great resistance to disease, and early indications are that vine weevils don’t pose a problem.
‘Florence’ strawberries work well as a trailing plant for hanging baskets as well as making excellent options for container growing. This variety produces heavy crops of large and firm dark red fruits from the end of June to the end of July.
7. Strawberry ‘Mara des Bois’
Strawberry ‘Mara des Bois’
- Flavor: Similar to aromatic woodland and alpine berries
- Size: Small to medium
- Color: Deep red
- Hardiness: USDA 5-8 perennials, 9-10 cool-season annuals
- Best for: Woodland strawberry flavour
Strawberry ‘Mara des Bois’ is a prolific everbearing strawberry beloved by millions of French gardeners. Bred in France and popular with chefs, this charming fruity number crops from late spring to early fall.
If you’re looking for inventive living wall ideas, this plant works well in vertical situations. This popular strawberry has vigour and produces lots of good-sized shiny conical fruits. It offers an intense aromatic flavour also found in woodland or alpine varieties.
8. Strawberry ‘Snow White’
Strawberry ‘Snow White’
- Flavor: Pineapple
- Size: Medium
- Color: White
- Hardiness: USDA 5-8 perennials, 9-10 cool-season annuals
- Best for: Containers
Bring a talking point to the dining table with this unusual choice, one of just a few strawberry varieties with white flesh and red seeds. ‘Snow White’ is also delightfully aromatic and has an amazing flavour reminiscent of pineapples.
Also known as ‘pineberry’, ‘Snow White’ produces fruit in early to mid summer. It has a bushy habit and stems that spread neatly, making it a good choice for small vegetable garden ideas and open ground growing, as well as containers and hanging baskets.
9. Strawberry ‘Colossus’
Strawberry ‘Colossus’
- Flavor: Sweet, flavorsome
- Size: Extra large
- Color: Red
- Hardiness: USDA 5-8 perennials, 9-10 cool-season annuals
- Best for: Making an impact
When size matters, ‘Sweet Colossus’ is the strawberry for you – and the good news is that you can have massive fruits that are just as luscious as standard croppers. Where other strawberry varieties have concentrated flavor in smaller fruits, these mammoth beauties are just as tasty and their heavyweight breeding hasn’t been at the expense of sweetness.
Average fruits from this larger-than-life cultivar weigh in at 42g, so a whopping big bounty is guaranteed. Ideal for raised garden beds, greenhouse borders and garden beds, this gargantuan strawberry fruits from early summer to early fall.
10. Alpine/Woodland Strawberry
Alpine (aka woodland) strawberry
- Flavor: Not as intense as cultivated types
- Size: Small
- Color: Red
- Hardiness: USDA 5-8 perennials, 9-10 cool-season annuals
- Best for: Pollinators, decoration
For something a little different, Fragaria vesca (also known as the woodland or alpine strawberry) is an attractive addition to the garden. The wild strawberry produces attractive foliage and flowers followed by small berries in June.
These charming types of strawberry are hardy and cold tolerant, as well as possessing deeply decorative qualities. They are great plants for pollinators, and perfect for the front of a border or the edge of a path.
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