Welcome to my first entry into the alpine strawberry blog. The first idea I'd like to discuss is growing alpines in containers and specifically pot color. Most nurseries produce plants in black containers. There's a reason. Most nursery plants need and like warm soil. Strawberries on the other hand prefer cooler soil as evidenced by their best production in the spring or fall (for everbearing varieties). I've had many plants die because their roots were "cooked" or didn't survive winter due to stresses that I attribute partially to hot soil. I try to grow alpine strawberries in white containers for this reason. Unfortunately there aren't any plug trays or flat inserts made in white, at least that I'm aware of. So, I germinate in black plug trays and up-pot to 1801 inserts (black is all I can find) and then asap transplant into 6" white azalea pots as soon as they can be handled. When the plants have outgrown the 6" pots I move them to white 2 gallon buckets and finally white 5 gallon buckets.