Skip to Content.
Sympa Menu

nafex - Re: [NAFEX] Illinois Everbearing mulberry

nafex@lists.ibiblio.org

Subject: North American Fruit Explorers mailing list at ibiblio

List archive

Chronological Thread  
  • From: "William C. Garthright" <billg@inebraska.com>
  • To: North American Fruit Explorers <nafex@lists.ibiblio.org>
  • Subject: Re: [NAFEX] Illinois Everbearing mulberry
  • Date: Tue, 01 Sep 2009 17:34:29 -0500


Finally tasted some Illinois Everbearing mulberries the other day & they were
really lovely.


For what it's worth, I just cut mine down. I had a couple of minor problems with it (these might not be a problem for you), and one major one. The minor problems were (1) some regular winterkill and (2) it wanted to grow like crazy, while I wanted to keep it in a compact spot.

But the reason I cut it down is because I never once got a ripe mulberry from it. Ordinary mulberries produce a lot of berries all at once, so the birds can eat a bunch and still leave plenty for me. But this one produces a few all summer long, so the birds got *all* of them before they ever got completely ripe.

And the tree is so vigorous that it would have been almost impossible to net (and it would be hard to keep netting on a tree all summer, anyway). I finally decided that it just didn't make sense to keep it.

As an aside, I'd like to try a dwarf mulberry there. But the only one I've ever heard of is the Geraldi Dwarf Mulberry from Edible Landscaping (in Virginia), and I've had trouble with that nursery and that particular variety. Does anyone here know of a dwarf mulberry available elsewhere? And what in the heck dwarfs the Geraldi, anyway? It's grafted, but the rootstock seems very vigorous (judging by the results when the top of my last one died).

Bill
Lincoln, NE (zone 5)

--
We can only wonder what a Manhattan Project aimed at alternative energy might have accomplished by now, had it been started 15 years ago. What we have had in lieu of vision, leadership, and backbone is a series of easy paths taken. - Jeremy Grantham




Archive powered by MHonArc 2.6.24.

Top of Page