Yawiney, I agree with Carla that the berries of Black Beauty (or probably any Morus nigra) are far to precious to waste on the birds. I also find that the are very well concealed under the large, thick, and slightly drooping leaves, so the birds are not as keen for them as they are for some other mulberries. In my area they fruit a good month or even two after most cherries. In my area any Morus alba will fruit around the same time as cherries, and it may be advantageous to get one that will produce white fruit so that the poop from the birds eating all those berries instead of the cherries won't stain everything. A named cultivar would not be necessary though, and might cost more.

Probably they are White Mulberries. The two are very similar, the only sure way to tell them apart, I think, is that the undersides of the leaves of Red Mulberry are hairy; but I've only seen Red Mulberry in the woods a couple times and White Mulberry is all over the place. Note that White Mulberry fruit can be purple, red or white, and the mulberries you remember as a kid were probably White Mulberries. I know the ones I remember were. White Mulberry Red Mulberry WW

Hi, I have a couple of questions regarding Mulberries: 1. I read that Morus rubra (the US native mulberry) only grows to 20' in the northeast - that it only grows to 50 or 70 in the south or mid west? I live in NJ and hope that the tree is a small one (as in around 20'). 2. Will the taste of Morus rubra's berries be significantly worse then the commercial M. alba x M. rubra hybrids, such as 'Illinois Everbearing'? 3. I really want(ed) to stick with the native variety (M. rubra), but don't want to significantly compromise on taste - could I graft a M. rubra limb onto my non-native M. alba x M. rubra hybrid (sapling) so that I have both varieties - I'll actually end up just keeping most of the tree M. rubra and only a single maintained limb of the original hybrid. 4. Will grafting the M. rubra onto the M. alba (x M. rubra) rootstock minimize the risk that M. rubra often experiences of root disease (spread by M. alba)? I figure that since the roots are not M. rubra's (at least I think they don't use M. rubra to do grafts) this would be an advantage. 5. Is M. rubra self-fertile - some sites say yes - and some say that it varies. I guess if it's female, the M. alba x M. rubra self-fertile limb would fertilize it. 6. Do you think that a 10' tall and wide Mulberry tree provides all the fruit one would want; if so, I might keep it pruned small. Thanks, Steve

I quite fancy the crown and leaves of a well-grown northern catalpa. Of course, depending on where I am and what kind of tree grouping I'm looking at, this can go in multiple directions. As far as seeking relief among trees on a hot day, nothing cools and refreshes like a grove of native Thuja occidentalis, or northern white cedar. I believe they may transpire larger than average amounts of water into the surrounding atmosphere, and this of course, has a directly cooling property.