thirty two

at least one berry in the south bed has begun to show some tinges of red...others should follow...that is not the focus of this post however...the focus is still reproduction and it seems to be accelerating...exponentially may be too strong a word here ( even though each plant that is producing stolons is now producing more than one each )...arithmetically doesn't quite cover it though...

over in the south bed, two plants...nine stolons...plus the largest number of berries...also the sunniest spot...a definite correlation...between sunshine and berries...i am not so certain about the stolon part...

up north the plants have produced a paltry five stolons between them...

the east bed is not the sunniest spot in the yard...there are some berries cooking away here...but the number of stolons produced by just three plants outpaces the other two beds combined...

with stolons having deposited potted daughter plants and moved on their way...

and what you might call auxiliary stolons branching off other stolons, three plants have accounted for eighteen stolons...i am facing the possibility of thirty two daughter plants from the surviving eleven of the original twelve plants...and it is only roughly two thirds of the way through may..one could hope for a slow down but i am not sanguine about that..these are not domesticated strawberries ( which, if you had been reading a few years back about the old community garden on campus you would know are no slouches at producing daughters themselves )...they are the "wild and weedy" ancestors..."slow down" may not be in their vocabulary...admittedly these plants do not bear fruit indefinitely and daughters are a necessity to propagate and make more berries...so they can pretty much have the east bed to romp in...the asparagus is so deeply rooted it won't care...at some point however i will have to interfere to keep things under some sort of control...all perennials are invasive...have a look at the jerusalem artichoke issues in the other blog...and the volunteer potatoes ( yes they are a perennial...people just grow them like annuals..leave some in the ground and see what happens )...hard-nosed colonizers.