Great little no care tree. Luv me some Mulberry. There are a couple
different close spellings for this cultivar. Mulberry one of my first
fruits of season. Great grazers tree, out with my coffee in morning.
This tree only gets about 6 foot so fruit all at hands reach, which is
what makes it great compared to lot of larger growing trees. If you
can’t grow Morus Nigra and most of us can’t although I have one Black
Beauty still hanging on this is a good choice.
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Phil,
Great looking Girardi Mulberry tree. I got 6 grafts taken on large wild Mulberry understocks. Hopefully, I have the chance to enjoy them this Summer.
Tony
nice specimen you got there. Our relatively young gerardi was dive-bombed by the neighborhood cats(stalking the sparrows eating the fruits), destroying plenty of precious branches which took several years to develop…
btw, quite certain your video entry is something @Livinginawe will appreciate.
It is loaded with fruits! I hope my Girardi will grow to such a tree.
Great video Strudeldog! I am glad to see the Girardi doing so well in the Southeast. Keep us updated on any changes to your Black Beauty…I, too, am attempting to grow a Morus nigra also…in Gainesville, Florida, no doubt.
So will this grow in Texas? I have rootstock…need ideas… it’s a beautiful tree!
it should be ok there! So much better chances than nigra’s, imo
it is the other slooooooow-growing mulb have experience with and may be more runty than nigras.
most folks worry about their mulbs growing 10 feet and wide in 1 year(even here in vegas), but here, nigras and gerardi’s will probably take 20 or more years to grow to that size.
even in relatively moist oregon, Ms Whitman(whitmanfarms.com) sent me a photo of the-mother-of-all gerardi’s that she’s had for more than 15 years, and it was barely 6 feet tall and wide. A compact, and heavy-bearing mulb(as the internodes are super short) with decent berries is always a good thing!
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Mine was almost that size but I lost it in the hurricane last year, now I have to start all over. Mine reached that size in 2.5 years, it was grafted, not sure if my new one is or not.
Mark,
So sad that you loss your GD. I grafted two trees from the GD scions that you sent to me last year. I also grafted a few more of the GD on wild mulberry understocks this Spring and they all budding out at the moment. The legacy of your GD will go on…
Tony
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Ouch that would hurt to loss a tree like that c5tiger. Mine was in ground 4 years and not quite as slow as jujubemulberry noted but maybe I just got lucky. I grafted over the root stock of my latest Pakistan lost last spring and it’s off to a good start. I would think It would do fine in TX, or pretty much anywhere zone 5 and up. I know there have been discussions on what actual species it is. I think USDA Davis even changed what it was categorized a few years ago, or maybe that was a different one
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Good to hear, hope they do well.
Mine did not do much the first year but grew a good bit the next two. The limbs with the leaves show that years growth and is well over a foot. Plenty water and N and it took off.
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Here is a followup on Girardi. A conversion today made me realize how long a fruiting season it provides between old and new wood fruit. I probably started getting a few fruit in April as as that 1st clip was early May production was starting to pick up here it is mid-June and lots of fruit to ripen yet, and there has probably been ripe fruit every day. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q-pwv0iNehI
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How do you keep them from being stripped bare by the birds? I have 2 (although smaller) and if I don’t net them I only get the occasional berry that was hidden by leaves. The rest, poof, gone before fully ripe. Maybe you just have so many the birds can’t keep up?
The good news is they are small enough to easily net and I will definitely do that next year.
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Ouch!
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I think I have just outproduced my local bird population consumption capacity. They get their share I assure you that.
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I’m not fond of sharing with the birds. What concerns me is they poop all over. Some of that has to end up on my share. I’m fine eating thrips and other small critters on my fruit. But not dodo.
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That’s just gravy on the biscuit.
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Ya until it leads to serious intestional illness.
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Great video! Your Gerardi’s seem to be growing much faster than information would have you believe. I had no idea that you had so many other cultivars also. Sorry to see your nigra suffer so.
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Yes My Black Beauty looks pitiful , but better than the couple Noire De Spain that died on me or the 3 Pakistan froze out. I have my I.E. in another location. I think I lost Middleton this winter unless it decides late to come back from root. I rooted as a USDA cutting so would still be true, I wish they would still distribute wood. I failed on rooting several cultivars from them, and If I had another chance I would split material between rooting and grafting
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