Strawberries as Groundcover?

The reason I'm asking this is because I saw an ad at CraigsList last night & the sales pitch was to put them where you couldn't grow anything else.

I have a "thing" for functional aesthetics (blueberries for my hedges, etc) and if you guys think this would work, I'd love to use strawberries as groundcover out front. They'd take over, be evergreen, and provide fruit - everything I'm looking for!

Specifically, at the front of my 160' wide yard is a large rolling ditch with nothing but weeds in it right now, and I've been racking my brains for 2 yrs trying to figure out what to do with it. (see pic below) Very little water runs thru it when it rains, so they wouldn't get drowned, and it gets full sun, all the time.

At the flat, top part of the yard, where I took the rails out, I'm putting a 5-6' wide flower bed, but then the ditch is beyond that.

What do you think?

If you want fruit, planting them IN the ditch wouldn't be the best place, though the general area looks nice and sunny. But strawberries are prone to brown rot and other fungusy things, and they don't like to get wet.

Ok, that's good to know, thanks.

I wonder if something like lingonberries or cranberries would work.

I just checked - neither of those would work. This ditch is dry 90% of the time.

Is it dry from May through October?

Basically, yes. It might collect a little water when it rains, but it's gone very quickly.

I was so excited when I first got here, and saw wild strawberries everywhere, or so I thought :(. Turns out they're something else (the name escapes me at the moment) which does have little red strawberrylike berries, with absolutely no taste. I guess my point is that maybe I'll see how "real" strawberries do....

Hey, catmad. :))

I put in a small (lasagne) bed of ever-bearing Tribute strawberries last November & they came thru the winter (with no covering) with flying colors - I couldn't be more tickled! They have spring fever now, are growing at a fantastic pace, and I have little berries forming already. What a kick!

Hmmm. Ya know, I had strawberries in a window box first year here, but it occurs to me that I may have the perfect spot for a small patch. Hmmm.....

Sure. One more thing......

I put some native strawberries on a little corner near our pond and they love it there! There is actually one shoot in the water and I rarely have to water them. The rest of the bed is full of creeping thyme and the both of them are creeping up the rock and down the side of the bed and even under the bridge. Have you looked into rambling native berries of some kind for your area? There might be one that would work for you.