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Fruit & Orchards

Growing mulberries as fruiting shrubs instead of trees?

16 years ago

Has anyone experimented with cutting back mulberry saplings to induce new growth from the roots, and in effect create mulberry shrubs? Will they fruit if pruned back every few years to maintain them at, say, 5-6 ft tall? Or do they only fruit on old wood? Maintaining them as shrubs instead of trees would make harvesting the berries much easier. Thanks.

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Comments (8)

Scott F Smith
16 years ago
You can easily get multi-leader trees, I know because I have seedlings all over my yard thanks to the birds and each time I whack them back they send out multiple leaders. If you really kept on the pruning you could keep them small but it would be a fair amount of work I would say. Hedging them back several times in the summer would be part of that program.

Scott
jbe1
16 years ago
If you want a shrub type with excellent fruit, I suggest the variety Geraldi, available through ediblelandscaping.com and whitmanfarms.com. I sampled the one growing at Edible Landscaping in Virginia this spring and the berries were awesome, and the tree very productive, even after the Easter freeze. While the catalogs say to 6 ft, I'd guess it was around 8ft at mature size.

Do you have a warm micro climate available in your yard? I'm not sure if any mulberry will grow there in zone 4, as I have only seen them rated to zone 5.

Good Luck,

JB
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@deserthawk, i also live in vegas, and as mentioned by bob z6, you might want to try grafting black mulberries onto your rootstock, especially if you want something that has dwarfing effects, and with no grassy taste typical of most(but not all) white mulberries.If you go to star nursery at cheyenne(diagonally across mountain view hosp), they might still have some black mulberries. I thought i saw them priced at ~39.99 for the smaller ones. You might also want to try grafting with pakistani mulberries which, although not as much 'fireworks in the mouth' as black mulberries, has at least a unique and quite complex flavor profile. Only problem with pakistani's is its rapid growth, which could be a problem for small yards. I have not heard of any other fruit tree which you could graft to mulberries-- besides other kinds of mulberries. Another option would be dwarf gerardi's , which do very well in las vegas, and are quite productive. It is a true dwarf, and will grow not much more than a foot a year here.
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jbe1
16 years ago
Another option would be weeping mulberry which I've just noticed is rated to zone 3 or 4. Just stake it and train it as high as you like, then let it weep(can remove stake in a short time). Available through Edible Landscaping, Raintree, Burnt Ridge, Whitman and others.

JB
sautesmom Sacramento
16 years ago
Why does whitmanfarms.com come up as a Society for Professional Estimators???
Carla in Sac
nick_b79
Original Author
16 years ago
I know that wild (non-native) mulberries grow in central MN, a solid zone 4, where I went to college. There was a 30-ft one growing in the alley outside my apartment, and numerous seedlings sprouting around it. I was tempted to just go back and dig up a few of these seedlings just to experiment with them.
thattrando_yahoo_ca
12 years ago
hi, i'm Tracy, i had grow a mulberry from seeds, it is about 3 feet tall now, please let me know how i can get the umbrella look or how to make it weeping, thank you
pperkal_yahoo_com
12 years ago
I live in the Twin Cities (Minnesota), and I used to live near a park with quite a few mature mulberry trees. There was even one growing in my back yard. Every summer, I looked forward to eating the fruit.

I have clay soil where I live now, and the yard is quite a bit smaller than the one with the mulberry tree. That makes me very interested in this discussion, because I'd love to have some mulberry "shrubs" for fruit.
khalidobeidat_live_com
12 years ago
I live in Roseville and I think I have Mulberry shrub it doesn't look like the Mulberry trees I'm used to in Jordan middle east. I'd like to be sure it is mulberry before eating it but I couldn't find matching picture to identify the shrub

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