Ive been slowly creating my garden and orchard since moving to a new house last year and one area ive been really interested in is mulberries. Ive heard certain varieties of mulberries are very easy to root cuttings from similar to figs, so i was going to start there along with finding any wild plants around us to dig up. Would anyone be interested in sharing cuttings from easy to root varieties for zone 7a? Id be willing to trade fig cuttings or such.
6 Likes
The easiest one to root is everbearing mulberry. I have scions if you want to grow that one. Fresh is just sweet nothing special, but in jams its one of the best, also produces at least 5 times as much as regular red mulberry and at a shorter size.
1 Like
This past spring, I took cuttings from a mulberry tree down the road from our home. I potted 10 cuttings, all of which died. Better luck next spring.
1 Like
Burnt Ridge Nursery has some good mulberry rootstock… russian mulberry… very cold hardy, very nice stout roots.
Late spring this year I caught them on sale 5.00 per rootstock.
I had good luck grafting mulberry scionwood to them. Kip Parker and Lawson Dawson.
Those are all planted out in my orchard now, and one at my daughters home.
I tried rooting gerardi mulberry and all failed.
I have had very high success rate grafting mulberry.
Those are the BRN russian mulberry rootstock above.
TNHunter
4 Likes
I have a nice lot of probably 15 - 20 mulberries that started as weeds (if you know, you know, 
). I didn’t cut them down with the intention of grafting improved varieties to them. My plan is to get some cuttings from a farm that I work with. There is a very old, large tree that has long, fat, delicious mulberries on the property. I plan to graft cutting from that tree, as well as some other improved varieties. I’ve been keeping an eye on the trading post to see who has what in this vein.
I could probably cut some extra scionwood when I am out at that farm next month. PM me. 
2 Likes
Fruitwood Nursery has some cuttings available.
I have a Russian mulberry planted in fall 2020, that is about 9 feet tall. Has anyone tasted the mulberries from a Russian.
I also have an Everbearing dwf from Starks Nursery, planted spring 2021. It is about 8 feet tall and had 3 dozen very small mulberries this summer. They better get a lot larger or it is history.
I have 3 Pakistan mulberry trees going into their second winter, 9 feet tall. They grow very fast, but are easily killed by freezing. They froze back too a couple of feet last winter and sprouted from there. I do have them in 5 foot tree tubes. No fruit yet.
2 Likes
Thanks for the info! Ive had questions on how some of the lesser hardy varieties would hold up in my zone 7a. Like shangri la and pakistan and such. What are your typical lows that kill back the pakistan?
Im testing out trying to root a bunch of wild mulberry cuttings and see how my method works.
I don’t know the cold hardiness for dormant wood on pakistan, but it leafs out early and the buds are sensitive to early warm spells. When they start pushing, light frost will kill them. On April 5th this year, I had a low of 29°f and 31°f the day before which frosted off all the swelling buds at time. Luckily, the plant sprouted out a second set of leaves afterward. I got the secondary crop out of it, but the primary one was part of the frosting. This was the tree about 1 month after the frost:
Lacking all the fruit, it grew like crazy this year, otherwise they’re better tamed down. This is what a primary crop looks like:
I absolutely love the thing when it fruits properly, but it’s iffy with late frosts here in zone 9a.
2 Likes
I think our lowest temp last winter was during Jan 13-16; the temp was -6,-12,-7 and -6 degrees F. Unusually cold for our area. Mid-Missouri now zone 6b.
1 Like