Garden Strawberry Victoria - Features Of The Variety And Important Nuances Of Growing + Photo

2024 Author: Bailey Albertson | [email protected]. Last modified: 2024-01-17 22:26

Garden strawberry Victoria - "Was there a boy?"

You cannot find a gardener who has not heard of the Victoria large-fruited strawberry variety, and many will confidently tell that they grow this variety in their beds. Let me doubt it.

Strawberries or strawberries?

Both of these cultures belong to the genus Fragaria (Latin fragrant, aromatic, fragrant). Modern cultivars of large-fruited garden strawberries came from the accidental crossing of wild Chilean and Virginian strawberries in the early 18th century. The hybrid turned out to be very successful and spread through Holland throughout Europe, but only a century later was it possible to bring it to characteristics close to modern ones.

In Russia, they did not show interest in the new product at first, perhaps due to the fact that, as reported in the Brockhaus and Efron dictionary, this berry “will be born in our country in extraordinary abundance: forest - in sowing. and central Russia, a Fr. collina (steppe strawberry) - in the east. and south. Russia, where it is especially fragrant and so abundant that the milk of mares grazing on untouched steppe meadows sometimes has a strawberry aroma”. In our estates at that time, they grew nutmeg strawberries, which were also called strawberries due to the rounded shape of the berries (like a tuber). Only at the end of the 19th century did a new berry appear in Russia, and it quickly replaced the less productive strawberries. The strawberry itself disappeared from the ridges, and its name “stuck” to the new culture and still holds.

So, let's remember: strawberries have not been grown in our gardens since the 19th century, unless they were brought from the forest edge by a lover of subtle strawberry taste and aroma

Wild strawberries (left) and wild strawberries

The photo clearly shows the difference in the shape and color of the berries, and it is also difficult to tear the strawberry from the receptacle, unlike the strawberry.

But what about Victoria?

Such a variety was really bred in France in the 19th century and became very popular, but by the time Russia discovered a new garden strawberry for itself, it was already degenerating. The resourceful strawberry businessmen used this brand to designate all varieties of garden strawberries supplied to Russia, and Victoria became the designation of the species, not the variety. In the Russian outback, you can still hear: "strawberries - in the field, and in the garden - Victoria".

So does Victoria exist here as a variety of garden strawberries? We dare say no, although on the Internet you can find both a description of the variety and offers for the sale of seedlings or seeds

Phantom variety - photo gallery

Appetizing!

One of the many photographs of an unknown variety

Variety Victoria - on sale!

Mirroring the first photo

Here are some common claims about the variety and we will try to refute them

"The Victoria variety appeared in our country more than 200 years ago (or, alternatively, from the end of the 18th century)." Of course not - the first variety of real selection appeared in Europe only in 1819, while the Victoria variety was even later.

"The variety is named after Queen Victoria." Also controversial. Although the cultivar was developed during the reign of Queen Victoria (1837–1901), it is doubtful that the French would name the cultivar that way, given the complex relations between neighboring powers.

Portrait of Queen Victoria, 1855

Most likely, the name of the variety was given by the word victoire (fr.) - victory, triumph.

And most importantly: even if we assume that Victoria began to be successfully cultivated in Russia at the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries, then for more than a century of history the variety would have completely degenerated, varieties of garden strawberries do not live so much

The degeneration of the wonderful Festivalnaya variety, created in the middle of the last century, is a clear evidence of this.

Naturally, the Victoria variety is not present in the State Register of Plants.

Photo from a store offering to buy Queen Victoria

To summarize: producers of garden strawberry seed material, using the familiar name, sell, strawberry lovers buy and grow, and advanced gardeners write articles and reviews about a nonexistent variety - everything is in business

So what are we selling and growing? It's very simple: varieties of garden large-fruited strawberries are sold and planted on the beds, maybe very good, but have nothing to do with Victoria from the 19th century.