I have Gerardi dwarf now… grafted it last spring and it grew like crazy last season. 4 scions… 8 shoots 6+ ft long. Buds have opened now and it is loaded with fruit already.
Strudledog in north GA said his ripens fruit end of April… expext mine will ripen fruit early May.
He brags on the flavor of his sweet tart says it taste like IE.
It may require southern heat to be a better growing and tasting mulberry.
I will let you all know how it turns out here… I should be eating them in a month or less.
I also have a Silk Hope planted this spring… it is leafing now and as leaves appear… fruit also comes out with them. Not expecting first year fruit to be wow… but next year may be.
Have made up my mind on adding one other variety… that sure seems to do well in the south… big great tasting mulberries… Oscar.
I will show you why I think Oscar is going to be a very good tasting mulberry in the south…
Just watch this southern gal talking about and eating oscar mulberries. She has convinced me.
LOL – I’m glad to hear this as these are the two standard varieties I’m growing (with Gerardi). Kokuso is still very young.
I don’t need more fruit but I’m always on the lookout for a variety that will prove superior. I’m not aware of any variety that is consistently better than IE in the northeast. But I’m open to suggestions. . . .
I just re-read this entire thread. I’m intrigued by the endorsements of Silk Hope. It seems just barely cold hardy enough. One question: Does it ripen all at once? And if so, is it at all early or late? I have Illinois Everbearing and I really appreciate the gradual ripening over 6-8 weeks. I don’t know what I’d do with all those berries all at once.
Silk hope has a long season. About 6-8 weeks.
It is much better flavored than Illinois Everbearing or Kokuso (which is getting replaced as it is my least favorite)
I’ll bet mulberry wine is something else. We really enjoy them frozen, too. Even though IE is kind of stemmy, it makes a great pie. Very rich.
I do kind of wish it was the sort you could shake to harvest. My biggest IE (I have 4) is pushing 20 ft tall now and so the critters wind up with the lions share of its huge crop. You have to pinch the stem of each one to harvest, and I gave up trying to pollard it or manage it much beyond bending branches. That only goes so far at some point, it seems.
Kokuso hasn’t impressed me yet. I’ve not given up on it but the fruit hasn’t gotten much past red before dropping, an issue I’ve seen mentioned elsewhere. The form and massive leaves are nice though,
I agree that mulberries are delicious and versatile. Pie mixing mulberries with raspberries and/or blackberries is awesome. But my single tree (Illinois Everbearing) produced enough for a pie each day from late June two early August! Sadly that was before it blew down in a windstorm. I’m regrowing.
Thanks, Ram. I think I’ll have to give Silk Hope a try. An extended harvest is a definite plus. I know a woman nearby who gets 20 pounds of mulberries per day from a tree that grows in a neighbor’s yard along the separating fence; half the branches hand over into her yard. The berries just fall off onto a tarp laid one the ground. While that sounds great, she has no choice butt to freeze most of the harvest. Fresh fruit lasts only a couple weeks.
My Kokuso is young, starting its second year in the ground, so I haven’t had a chance to really test it here. It’s a bad sign that hobilus is disappointed. His conditions are probably similar to mine except for a much worse winter. At minimum, it might keep the birds distracted.
Hi All. We’ve gathered a number of mulberries to find out what produces best in our area (PNW zone 8A) and help us build out our mulberry orchard. We’ll try to document as much as we can on YouTube this season. Please let us know if you have any questions and we’ll do our best to share what we have learned. Enjoy the summer! - Mark
What we have on our farm now:
Australian
Beautiful Day
Big Red
Big White
Black Beauty
Black Prince
Boysenberry
Buluklu
Callie’s Delight
Contorted
David Smith
Delight
Dwarf Everbearing
Early Bird
Easter Egg
Exotica
Firm Red
Florida Giant
Four Seasons
French Syrian
Galicija
Girardi Dwarf
Grover’s Best
Hicks
Hunza Black
Illinois Everbearing
Issai Dwarf
Italian
Jan’s Best
Kip Parker
Kokuso
Lakeland
Lawson Dawson
Lebanese Heart
Long Red
Madhava
Maple Leaf
Maui
Middleton
Miss Kim
Noir de Spain
Northrop
Oscar
Pakistan
Pandora’s Box Weeping
Paradise
Persian
River View Russian
Riviera
Rupp’s Romanian
San Martin
Shangri La
Shelli
Sophie’s Fave
Sweet Delicious
Tehama
Thai Dwarf
Tice
Valdosta
Varaha
Wacissa
Weeping
Wellington
White Persian
Wonder Berry
World’s Best
None of my Gerardi grafts from last year made it… will have to try that one again.
One graft of Oscar’s survived my negligence last year.
Received scions of, and have grafted several copies this spring, of each of the following:
Kip Parker
David Smith Everbearing
Dixie Everbearing
Boyleston Everbearing
Honeydrops
Your Red Himalayan fruits look very good. My trees of the Red Himalayan (from local nursery here in SD) had a lot of fruits but the fruits are skinnier than your fruits. Taste is good, firm flesh, a little crunchy, with sweet taste. I think my Black Pakistan fruits are still very good when I compare the tastes of these two fruits.
This year my White Pakistan/Australian Green/Saharanpur Local trees grew the most fruits I have had, every leaf node has fruits hanging from them. As for sweetness, you can’t beat the white Pakistan, I measured maximum brix of 26 for the Red Himalayan, while the White Pakistan max brix was 30.
Lots of good ones to choose from. Where in “zone 5” are we talking about? Fewer options for “zone 4” (wherever that is) and only a handful for zone 3. Off the bat, I’d recommend Illinois Everbearing and Oscar as two of the best
It’s worth trying Varaha which is a native selection from Kentucky — also zone 5. The fruits shown on Peaceful Heritage Nursery’s website look impressive.
Btw Black Pakistan is absolutely loaded here this year. White Australian aka Saharanpur was badly damaged by winter cold and has zero fruit.
My newly grafted Himalayan has a lot of fruit too but I keep taking them off to give the graft energy to establish.
Some of those rare plants on peaceful heritage sell out so fast is the issue. I tried to get some paw paw from them last year a few hours after notification as I couldn’t get on the website when the notification was on. I managed to get the paw paw in my cart but the checkout had a error due to lack of stock.
