Ed. — From the Sunday, May 26, print edition.
VIRGINIA BEACH — I recently bit into a fruit I hadn’t tasted in years. The wild strawberry, or fragaria Virginiana, used to grow in open fields and along ditch banks in Virginia Beach. I haven’t seen any growing wild here in years, but last year some friends gave me a couple of plants that they’d dug from their Dinwiddie County property. They’re now blooming in my garden.
Another native, the obedient plant, is growing lushly in my flower bed, but it won’t bloom until later this season. Both plants are attractive both in and out of bloom and make nice additions to the garden.
I realize that not everyone would agree with me, however. Some consider the wild strawberry to be weedy, while obedient plants aren’t always hassle-free.
So, here I’ll share with you the trials and joys that I’ve had with these plants.
Fragaria Virginiana is a low-growing vine that produces small white flowers in mid-to-late spring. The cultivated strawberries are a hybrid of the fragaria Virginiana and a wild strawberry native to South America. The wild strawberry produces delicious berries that, although much smaller and a bit more tart than the cultivated varieties, are wonderful in pancakes, muffins or just eaten raw.
This plant grows best in relatively dry soil and, although it prefers a sunny location, can tolerate a little shade. Like many wild plants, it seems able to adapt and survive. Mine have been dwarfed by a rampaging patch of English primrose plants, but they’ve managed to grow upwards toward the sun and produce blooms.
Many people confuse the fragaria Virginiana, with the Duchesnea indica, which is sometimes colloquially referred to as the “wild strawberry.” These plants, which really are invasive and weedy, produce yellow blooms and very small berries that you wouldn’t want to eat.
The wild strawberry attracts pollinators and serves as a host plant for the gray hairstreak butterfly.
The physostegia Virginiana, or obedient plant, is also a native that the North Carolina Extension identifies as a member of the mint family. It works well in this area because, although it can grow in fairly dry soils, it can also tolerate a fair amount of moisture.
Sometimes called “false dragonhead,” this plant can grow up to four feet tall. It produces beautiful pale pink or lavender blooms from mid-summer into the fall. It earned the nickname “obedient plant” because, at least in theory, you can bend and manipulate the plant stems so that the blooms face in the direction that you turn them.
A word of caution – this never did work for me. Perhaps I just don’t have the magic touch, but I can’t bend the plants at my will, and I unfortunately have broken a stalk in my attempts to turn it.
Obedient plants can tolerate some shade, but I’ve found they really do best in full sun. My experience has been that, if they don’t get as much sun as they crave, they’ll grow tall and spindly and flop from their own weight.
Sometimes, obedient plants require staking even when grown in full sun because, like hollyhocks and other tall flowers, they tend to blow over in heavy winds. Like many perennials, they also begin to spread rapidly after a few years, and thinning them isn’t easy. They grow in clumps, and the roots aren’t easy to separate.
More experienced gardeners have told me that the best thing to do is just to allow the fittest to survive. If the plants are left to grow, some of them will thrive and grow tall while others won’t grow. This year, I’m largely trying that method although I did dig a few to give to friends.
If you’re looking for a maintenance-free plant, obedient plants might not be your best choice. But they attract pollinators, and they’re beautiful in bloom. They’ll make a lovely addition to your garden if you have some space that you want to fill and don’t mind occasionally staking or providing a trellis for them.
Fragaria Virginiana is also beautiful, too, and grows well as a ground cover in wildflower meadows or as a border between a cultivated yard and woods. The berries, although tiny to those of us spoiled by the cultivated varieties, are a luscious treat, but, if you don’t want them it’s certain that many species of songbirds and some mammals will.
You might want to consider both the wild strawberry and the obedient plant if you’re interested in native perennials and have a little space in which they can spread.
The author is a contributor to The Independent News. Her journalism has also appeared in The Virginian-Pilot.
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