Illinois everbearing mulberry as a bush?

[BobVance]

@danzeb

If I remember correctly someone on this forum tried that and it didn’t work.
Edit: I think it was @BobVance how tried some varieties on Gerardi and it didn’t dwarf them.

Yes, the short answer is that grafting to a Gerardi does NOT dwarf the top. They keep shooting up at ~10’ per year.

The long answer:

Why Gerardi is a dwarf mulberry

I’ve been interested in the Geraldi mulberry for a while, hoping I could make other mulberries dwarf. As this pic from last year shows, it doesn’t. New grafts from 3 varieties grew 5-10’ in the first year, while the Gerardi only grew to 5-6’ in 6 years. [image] So, this spring, when examining grafts, I noticed something interesting. The Gerardi is chock full of flowers/fruit. I vaugely recall it having quite a bit last year, but I never paid enough attention to see how it compares to the …

I’ve also got a multi-graft “bush” mulberry which I’ve been trying to keep bushy through pruning. I gave up last year after it kept getting out of control.

So, last May I tried to graft a bunch of Gerardi scions to it, about 5-6’ up. Main problem was that I didn’t plan ahead, so I was harvesting partially leafed out scions and immediately grafting them. A few worked (very swollen bud was fine, but actual leaves was bad…), but it looks like I’ll have to re-graft some this year.

I’m not even sure this will be enough- it may be that grafting 6’ up is too high to start, as I’ll need to keep an eye out for any non-Gerardi waterspouts.