How to Clone a Strawberry Plant
Strawberry tops the most favorite fruit list of many people around the world. The fruit tastes heavenly on the inside. The exterior is no less good with the deep red set in a crown of green leaves. Any homeowner with a penchant for growing fruits will love to have strawberries in his garden. Not only can they be eaten on their own, they make great dips, pie filling and desserts. Fresh strawberries can also be given as gift to your special ones. It is not just the taste which makes them so demanded. They are rich in Vitamin C, nutrients and antioxidants. They are helpful against heart disease, cancer and inflammation. The fun thing is strawberries grow at an alarming pace, replicating themselves. This process is similar to cloning. Strawberries have this natural urge in them to spread wherever invited. If you have strawberry plant in your garden, you can have many others by simply cloning the existing one.
Things required:
– Florist pins/U-shaped wire
– Scissors/clippers
Instructions
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1
Look out for the blooming period of your strawberries. When they start blooming, inspect the area on the base of the plant. You will notice runner emerging out of the stem. These runners are of red color and can be as long as one foot long. They are your tools for propagation.
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2
Choose spots near your old plant where you want the new ones to grow. The distance of this spot from your old one depends on the length of your runners. Extend the first runner to the chosen location and train it to settle there. Use a florist pin to hold the runner to the soil or else it will curl back to its original location. The florist pin is a curled piece of wire. You can also make your own easily by bending a florist wire into a U shape.
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3
Keep the runner in the new position with the help of the wire. Keep the soil underneath the wire moist so that there are ideal conditions of growth from the new runner. Roots will start forming from the base of the runner and a new strawberry plant will start appearing. Take off then florist pin when the runner is settled in the new location with its own roots. Clip off the runner from the old plant once the roots are firmly established. You can also dig up the soil underneath and move the plant to a new location.
