Strawberry death - strange

Last year, I built a strawberry tree, and while the strawberries in the pot at the bottom grew well, the ones in the upright pipe didn't do well at all, and indeed many died. I put this down to the compost maybe not holding water (I used multipurpose compost with nothing added) hence they were struggling to get nutrients and water.

Such was the level of losses, I abandoned the strawberry tree this year, and intend to wash all the compost out of it and then refill with a mix of compost, vermiculite, a small amount of chicken manure pellets, and some granular slow release fertilizer, and then plant up with trailing petunias

The strawberries have been moved into a half barrel planter that has some holes in the side, with the holes being considerably bigger than they were in the strawberry tree, and the inside of the sides has a liner of weed suppressing membrane that I have simply cut a cross into to allow me to get the plants in. The plants on the top of the barrel are thriving, however their counterparts on the sides have all died or are dying.

They are all planted into the same compost mix, the barrel is quite deep and well drained, and the strawberries in the sides are in the upper part of the barrel (so not sitting with their feet wet) - what am I missing?

Sent from my GT-I9300 using Tapatalk

 

Daily, unless it is raining. The thing that I can't get my head round is that the roots on some of the ones on the top of the planter cannot be more than a few centimetres away from the roots of the ones in the sides?

 

I too gave up the idea of strawberry towers too Loli for the same reasons.. I now grow in pots tubs troughs anything big enough really and have good success that way.. Jut have to watch out for woodlice... I sometimes wondered if they were one of the problems with the towers...

 

I have two terracotta ones too Harry and they are planted up with Aubretia coming out of the holes and Geums on the top.. The all seem perfectly happy in there..

I tried various herbs in them too with no success so they both now spend their lives with flowers in..

 

I agree about the towers, but I cannot get my head around this latest set going - they are planted into the side of a great big barrel, that has strawberries in the same compost on the top which are thriving; its almost as though they are objecting to being grown horizontally out of a hole