Mulberry trees

[richhodg66]

I've always liked the berries since I was a kid. They grew on their own all over the place where I grew up, so this tme of year they were everywhere.

Wife and I just bought a place with some acreage and I want to grown fruit trees on it in several places (also gonna get into gardening, but taking small steps for now).

here are a couple of trees around the lake at my current place with ripening berries now. Is it so simple to get trees to grow as to just grab some handfuls of ripe berries and plant them in loose soil in a sunny place or is there more to it than that? The trees seem to do pretty well here in northern Kansas and also seem to grow fast. Understand, this question is coming from a guy who doesn't know much about growing things.

[Beagle333]

Mulberries can be started from just planting branches. Just Google how to grow mulberry trees from branches or cuttings and it'll detail it in many articles. You can just stick a bunch of em in some moist soil (like around your lake) and hope..... but if you use some root hormone and start them in a container you'll have a higher success ratio. They are very easy to propogate though. You should have all you want in a short while.

[richhodg66]

I'll have to try the cuttings, maybe try some of each. They seem hardy trees, seems like I could get them growing easily enough.

[Wolfer]

I'll have to check on that also. Had lots of them around when I was a kid.
Near my uncles house was a single tree out in the woods. It was always good for a mess of squirrel when the berries were ripe.

[country gent]

I have a couple mullberry trees in the back yard. I really enjoy the berries, [pick waas and sprinkle some sugar on them in a bowl mabye a shortcake under them. Last year I didnt get any the birds beat me to them at least the ones I could reach and pick. If you want them for fruit plant a bunch morethan you think you need as birds and critters will take a big toll. Buy a good pellet gun and invest in pellet futures LOL.

[cainttype]

Using root harmone with cuttings of new growth, like Beagle333 suggests, is the way I do it. Placed in containers of potting mix, the success rate is almost 100% as long as they're watered regularly.
Transplanting is generally care free after a decent growth of new roots have emerged.

[tygar]

man do I like Mulberries! Had lots of trees on our last place but our new one only has 1 (that I've found). My hands would come back purple from stuffing my face with them.

[GoodOlBoy]

Mullberries, crabapples, even muscadine grapes in our area all got wiped out by some kinda blight over a decade ago. I am just now starting to see wild persimmons and wild plums coming back.

GoodOlBoy

[robinsroost]

I used to eat them like candy when I was a kid. I remember that if you eat too many you will have diarrhea........Robin

[CastingFool]

I have two mulberry trees in my backyard. the deer like them (berries are still green, but I saw 5 deer the other night munching on them) turkeys love them and best of all, my grandkids love them too. They have gone out there and they come back with purple hands and feet! they do like to run around barefooted. IMO, mulberries are best eaten fresh or in pies, etc. We dehydrated some one year, and they didn't turn out very well. Sorry, can't help you much about planting them. The ones we have were already here when we bought the place. I didn't even know we had them until I got rid of a bunch of Russian olives growing behind the house.

[labradigger1]

I have two mulberry trees I planted about 5-7 years ago. Love them fresh and made into jam.
As others have said, stick a cutting in the ground and they will grow.
Rooting hormone is made from them.

[richhodg66]

Where do I get this root hormone stuff?

onna take some cuttings in the morning and take them out to the place and plant them, but I want to try some in pots with the root hormone too. Can you really get fruit producing trees in four to seven years? I knew they grew fast, didn't know they grew that fast.

[cainttype]

Any place with a gardening center should have root harmone powder... I got my last bottle at Lowe's.
It takes very little of the powder to prep a cutting. For the average tinkerer, 1 small bottle is a lifetime's supply.

[jsizemore]

rootone. every place that sells plant stuff. easy to use.

[waksupi]

I'd like to grow some from cuttings, but I have never seen one in this area to prune off. I know the growing zone is good for them.

[crowbuster]

Man if you guys were closer. Constant battle around here keeping them cut out of all the places you don't want them. We have hundreds on our small 10 acres. Like weeds really. And the number of groundhogs I have killed eating mulberries off the ground is in triple digits. And good birds love em. However. That does make for colorfull poop on the trucks.

[Butchman205]

The Arbor Day Foundation has always been great for getting whatever trees I've wanted.
Order the trees, and they'll ship them at the perfect time of year for planting.

And I 2nd Crowbusters comment...those trees will spread like crazy in proper zones.

I could give you all of them you want here in Central Bama. I could dig up some pretty big trees with the backhoe, and set them on your pickup or trailer with berries hanging!!!

[MaryB]

I mash them down, add a bit of sugar, keep stirring etc to keep breaking them up. Strain the seeds out and make pancake syrup! Simmer it down until thick!


I have two mulberry trees in my backyard. the deer like them (berries are still green, but I saw 5 deer the other night munching on them) turkeys love them and best of all, my grandkids love them too. They have gone out there and they come back with purple hands and feet! they do like to run around barefooted. IMO, mulberries are best eaten fresh or in pies, etc. We dehydrated some one year, and they didn't turn out very well. Sorry, can't help you much about planting them. The ones we have were already here when we bought the place. I didn't even know we had them until I got rid of a bunch of Russian olives growing behind the house.

[bangerjim]

My mom always hated the 2 mulberries we had in the back yard. The bird droppings would wipe out a whole line full of clothes!!!!!!

Dad cut them down when I was in 6th grade. Bought her a drier the next year!

[GSM]

If you have birds and mulberries, you will end up with more mulberries. We could solve de-forestation with a few mulberries and some hackberries.

Rumor has it they need a barbed wire fence in order to propagate.;-)

[MaryB]

I have hackberries, and used hackberry covered truck in fall/sometimes spring(leftover berries from the previous fall)...

[Wayne Smith]

The wood is facinating, too. Bright yellow when you cut it, it drys into a dark brown red. Actually rather nice to work, but not particularly hard. If you can grow mulberries you can grow American Persimmons, too. That's my favorite. Got some seeds sprouting in a pot now, want to try to bonsi them.

[Pb2au]

Mulberrys are a seriously underrated fruit. The dark purple ones are sweet/tart and make great jam. The trees themselves will grow in good/poor/rocky/sandy whatever soil and root easily.
They are hardy too. I have one that I have cut back to the stump a half dozen times on my fence line, and just when I think i have killed it, it comes back with a vengeance. I am pretty sure they are immortal.
The native ones to the US are the red/purple ones. The white ones are asian. The only real difference between them is the color of the fruit. Fun fact, silk worms are fed with mulberry leaves.
Another funny thing, fish love the berries.

[Pb2au]

Fruit trees in general are a lot of fun to raise. I have two cherries, two plums and two peaches. They are a little more work to manage, but very rewarding.
Check your zone, but most fruit trees should thrive in your area.

[JonnyReb]

I've got 3 or 4 mulberry trees out back, lived here for 15 year and never paid any attention to them nor even knew what they were. When we got chickens i noticed they loved the berries and tried one myself..wow, awesome.

Now every year myself, the chickens and the squirrels all gather round to get some and the trees are some of my favorites out back..may well take the advice given in this thread and plant some of the rooted limbs so as to have more.

[berksglh]

Most cuttings do best when taken dormant. I do hybrid poplar and elderberry. Have tried mulberry cuttings from e-bay, but they were not true dormant cuttings and never rooted. If the buds have started to grow, its probably too late to take cuttings.

When dormant, cut canes and trim to length so they are @ least 2 buds per cutting. Trim bottom 1/4" below bottom bud. Dip bottom 1-2" into rooting compound, tap off excess, plant with 1 bud above ground near surface. The top bud will sprout, and if the bottom bud and wound roots, the top bud will grow into a cane and become the trunk over time.

I make wine and would love to do mulberry, but haven't located any locally. There are elderberry's everywhere around me. Thay make a good wine, and jelly if you add sugar and acid. But taste bad as picked the way they grow here.

[jmort]

"Mulberrys are a seriously underrated fruit."

For sure. "Seriously" good taste.

[sundog]

One particular tree back in the fence line has leaves bigger than dinner plates on the shady side, and produces abundant fruit that brings in the turkeys.

[Anonym]

I've got a red mulberry. I grew up with a purple one at my grandparents, and I just can't get the hang of when the red ones ripen and the birds typically wipe them out before I can get to them. I need to get some purple starts sometime. LOVE them!

[richhodg66]

I just walked down and picked a bowl of the ripe ones off the tree I mentioned, actually, it's two trees grown in a clump with some other stuff. Interestingly, the side that faces mostly east has a lot of ripe ones while the branches facing away seem to have ones that are just beginning to form.

[Schrag4]

I remember eating mulberries off the tree when I was a kid. I was pretty young, and I don't even remember where that tree was. We lived on a farm for a couple of years when I was 5/6, but I don't think that was it. I DO remember that they were tasty. My grandparents on my mother's side grew all kinds of fruits and vegetables, but I never remember seeing mulberries on their property. From their place we grew up eating choke cherries, various types of apples, pears, rhubarb, corn, peas, strawberries, grapes, and many more. Gardening and growing fruit trees was my grandfather's hobby, and it kept him very active just about every day, well into his 90s. He was taken last August by cancer that started in his mouth (never used any tobacco in his life), but had it not been for that, I'm sure he would have lived to be over 100, mainly due to his active lifestyle.

[richhodg66]

I think I'm gonna make a pie this weekend.

[MtGun44]

I have mulberry trees in my back yard, wild, great to eat and grow well here
in east KS. Come and get some berries if you want some wild local stock.
Come to think of it, they should be ripening about now, have not noticed
them yet, but it has been cool and raining so darned much!

[Mk42gunner]

They are ripening now, I found that out when I had to splice a broken electric fence wire that broke right in the middle of a clump of mulberry sprouts.

I believe they are very closely related to the common hedge/ Osage Orange tree. The leaves look very similar, as does the wood. I remember my dad telling me that a mulberry corner post is supposed to last for seventy years, compared to a hedge post lasting one hundred years (who figures this stuff out anyway?).

Robert

[nagantguy]

Using root harmone with cuttings of new growth, like Beagle333 suggests, is the way I do it. Placed in containers of potting mix, the success rate is almost 100% as long as they're watered regularly.
Transplanting is generally care free after a decent growth of new roots have emerged.

This is the way to go; rooting hormone has given me great success on many trees, fruting and non.

[MaryB]

Going to have to try this next spring. Plant a few out back in my weed patch I can't mow.

[richhodg66]

Wife and I picked a couple of quarts a few days ago. Night before last we had a blow down that dropped half a maple tree in my yard and tore the power lines down, which wouldn't have been so bad, but the house I old, box didn't meet code and required an electrician to do a meter loop rebuild before they'd reconnect. Similar thing happened to our parsonage, so I have been spending quality time with a chainsaw the past two days instead of doing fun stuff like cooking mulberry pie.

[Butchman205]

Wife and I picked a couple of quarts a few days ago. Night before last we had a blow down that dropped half a maple tree in my yard and tore the power lines down, which wouldn't have been so bad, but the house I old, box didn't meet code and required an electrician to do a meter loop rebuild before they'd reconnect. Similar thing happened to our parsonage, so I have been spending quality time with a chainsaw the past two days instead of doing fun stuff like cooking mulberry pie.

Save that maple wood to grill steaks with!!!

[richhodg66]

Yeah, that's the good thing, I got a bunch of firewood out of it and the electrician who did the meter loop rebuild gave me the lead boot from around it, so I got maybe two or three pounds of pure lead I can use.

[trapper9260]

For those that would like for what is talk about to use like the OP ask about here is a link
Make Your Own Rooting Hormone From Willow Twigshttp://mrbrownthumb.blogspot.com/2013/04/make-your-own-rooting-hormone-from.html

[richhodg66]

Thanks for that link.

Wife made the pie this evening, turned out pretty good. That tree ripened sooner than others around town, so hopefully can get more picked in the coming few days. I think we'll try freezing some until we can figure out how to make jam or something with them.

[trapper9260]

You are welcome.Hope it will help others also.