Your future backyard, home to the Wild Strawberry.

Your future backyard, also known to us as the Pine Creek natural corridor, is a rich, healthy green space with an abundance of biodiversity. In this series, we would like to introduce you to some of the more interesting flora and fauna that call this. The Wild Strawberry: Fragaria virginiana, commonly called the wild strawberry, is a beautiful, ground-hugging perennial that typically grows to 4”-7” tall but spreads indefinitely to form new plants as they sprawl along the ground, often creating large colonies over time. Native to woodland openings, meadows, and prairies, and found from Newfoundland to Alberta and all the way south to Georgia, Tennessee, and Oklahoma. In April and May the wild strawberries bloom, featuring a five-petaled white flower with numerous yellow stamens. Flowers turn into strawberries which mature to red and are much smaller than the strawberries we see in our grocery stores. The Latin word fraga, meaning strawberry, derives from fragrans meaning fragrant in reference to the perfume of the fruit. Historically, these plants were mulched with straw to help fight the possible onset of fungal diseases; giving rise to the commonly known name of the plant: strawberry.