Personally, I don't see any reason why this would be a problem. I have a small patch of the musk strawberries at the end of my regular strawberry patch.

I have no idea about the cross pollination issue. Perhaps you'd get something interesting if they did, but I don't know if that is even possible. If you are only growing Junebearing regular strawberries, you could just save the seeds from the alpines that grow later in the summer, and they would be pure seed. You can also divide alpine strawberries easily to increase them.

Musk strawberries taste pretty much the same as alpines -- smaller berries with a more intense strawberry flavor that makes superb preserves, jam, etc. Alas, they are terribly poor bearers -- mine have at most a few hands full each year on a patch of problably 100 square feet. The alpines are actually considerably more productive. The musks are only Junebearing, whereas the alpines are everbearing and will fruit here for me in Michigan into early October.

You can grow them all together. Musks generally produce larger berries than alpines, but they also produce tons and tons of runners. They also have awesome flavor.

As for cross pollination, they will cross pollinate if you have more than one variety of alpines, but I don't know think you'll have to worry about it if you only have one. I've got 4 or 5 varieties growing, so I can't say for sure.

Since the alpines do not produce runners they will get crowded out if you are not very careful about beating back the runners from the other kinds. I had a few alpines in a bed of regular strawberries and they lasted about two years before being overwhelmed.

Scott

Wow I didn't know something like that could happen scott. Hmmm, learn something new everyday I guess. Thanks!

Since alpine strawberries do not send out runners, they make wonderful edger perennial plants. They're great for putting along the edge of herb beds or flower beds. I like them in the potager, where there are other perennials. They're fun for the kids to pick, since they're so small :)

I definitely wouldn't plant them in the same bed, due to reasons others mentioned. However, even putting them in separate beds won't control cross-pollination, which can readily happpen. If you want the seeds to be pure F. vesca, you'll have to cover them with some sort of insect-proof screen when they're blooming.

Thanks everyone!

I'm going to try the alpine strawberries in the front yard with the flowers, and also in the herb bed.

The musk strawberries sound as though they would be an inefficient use of of my small space. I would want more than a handful from 100 sq ft -- you must really like them, denninmi! Thanks again for all the good advice.

Alpine and musk strawberries don't cross with garden strawberries outside of lab conditions (not GM, they cross but the seedlings have to be grown in Petri dishes as F1s aren't very viable). There is some work happening on these to create a strawberry with alpine flavour but garden strawberry sized fruit but they're not common yet, these are dubbed Fragaria x vescana.

Musk and alpine strawberries are theoretically compatible but they have similar flavours apparently anyway.