Yeah, I hear you. With the deer herd here, I have two choices – (1) fence the mulberries, as I do with the Gerardi’s; or (2) grow them so that the lowest branch is 6’ and the highest is whatever we care to reach, which is what I do with IE. At least it’s entertaining watching the deer stand on 2 legs to pick off leaves. And yes I do most of my picking on a step-ladder.
I will freely admit that pruning Gerardi to offset the bushiness is much less work that pruning IE to keep it short.
Someone on the old NAFEx email discussion list once likened pruning Illinois Everbearing and its ilk in an attempt to control size to trying to manage a firehose at full flow/pressure. They are vigorous growers!
I’ve allowed young mulberries here in the yard to have ‘trashy trunk’ - numerous small branches, from near the graft level up to desired scaffold branch height… and allowing those low branches to grow until they are close to 1" in diameter at their attachment to trunk before pruning them off. Otherwise, they’d be subject to buck rubbing… as it is, the deer come into the yard and browse off every leaf they can reach, from time to time, but I’ve not had an issue (yet!) with bucks rubbing trees within a hundred feet or so of the house… farther away…nothing is safe.
There are mulberries in what were cross-division fence lines in our lower pasture (we removed those fences when we sold the cows in '19) that are 10+ ft tall and have trunks that are 4+ " diameter that have been totally girdled by bucks rubbing them… I have to cut them to the ground and select a single stem when they resprout - and cage… or I’ll just have heavily-browsed mulberry ‘shrubs’ out there in the (now) hayfield.
anyone also looking for late mulberries around neighborhoods.
Like mid August
Most of the tree’s drop earlier
I have some history with multiple ones that drop later
separated by a mile and another by a half all in alignment of one another,
but this one’s the last one of the 3 left, and now the house is for sale so I’d like to save it.
It also might be everbearing or “maybe not”
just noticed it this year , but grew up with the other 2 my whole life (they weren’t ever bearing).
I also have one that is a Heavy bearing tree in alley a truck is always parked under it hahah.
Not certain but I hear a lot of white Mulberry Hybrids
I deeply believe more of ours our pure red mulberry around here
since a lot of tree’s are older, before the white mulberry spread so much and grew up picking them.
A update on this thread…
I have gerardi mulberry fruiting now in year 3.
Year 1 fruits were not much… understandable.
Year 2 fruit were somewhat bland early on but as the fruiting season warmed up… they improved in flavor quite a lot. The later berries I got were quite good… nice fruity flavor, mildly sweet.
Now in year 3… the first fruits I have tried were very good… even better than the late fruits from last year. Looking forward to the later ones this year… should be very good.
Also… on the reports of gerardi being a slow grower. Not here in southern middle TN. Mine grew 8 shoots 6 ft in season 1.
Today i have kept it at 8 ft max with pruning.
At this point… I also have a silk hope and oscar mulberry. Oscar is new this spring… silk hope is in year 2… i should get some ripe fruit from it soon.
I am seriously considering yanking 2 apples at my new home site… this was a very bad fireblight year… and pest year… i have about decided that apples are not worth it here… too much trouble.
At most… i may keep a small b9 espellar tree to mess with… those are very easy to prune and maintain, no ladders needed.
So… today considering other mulberries that I may want to add.
I am in zone 7b now.
I found a nice detailed mulberry variety document in a post here and have studied it… here are some of the varieties I am interested in.
Would love to hear more details from anyone actually growing these varieties.
Stubbs (1870 Georgia) zone 5-9, black fruit 2" tree 10 ft. Prolific producer of flavorful feuit ?
Vahara zone 5-10, large black fruit 1.75 inch, large tree, prolific bearer of quality fruit.
Miss Kim zone 6-10, black 2" large fruit, tree size unknown ???, delays bud break to avoid most late frosts. No details on fruit flavor, sweetness, tartness…
Kokuso - korean… zone 5-9, black large 1.5 inch flavorful fruit.
Note… I am not really interested in smaller fruiting varieties… dont want trees that will come out too early in spring and get frosted, not interested in sweet only fruit.
Good flavor + Sweetness is good.
Good flavor + sweetness & tartness is ideal.
Anyone growing any of those varieties that can give more details on them ? How they have worked for you ? Are those descriptions accurate for your location ?
Flavor, sweetness, tartness details ?
Thanks
TNHunter
oscar is one many people mention as being a quality mulberry (the USDA thinks it might be a nigra hybrid which might explain the taste reviews as being really good; it is not clear if it is a nigra hybrid, though), silk hope is a rubra-hybrid with taste better than IE, and kip parker is another rubra-hybrid (Weston Lombard’s favorite - also he considers it better than IE)
@rubus_chief … on Oscar… Bob here described Oscar as having flavor very similar to a nice blackberry. I was sold then and had to have one.
That is also why i noted my ideal mulberry taste would include flavor + sweetness + tartness.
So far my gerardi have a nice fruity flavor and a nice mild sweetness… but no tartness … unless you eat them mostly red… but then there is some unripe grassy taste included.
Thanks for your details.
I will check out kip parker.
you are zone 7 so you could also try a nigra (maybe in a pot)
lots of good rubra-hybrids with tangy sweetness and complex flavor: Kip Parker, Silk Hope, Lawson-Dawson (Lucky P’s), IE, Stearns, Corral (Lucky P’s), and Orlinda, Lucky P’s new one;
@Lucky_P any recommendations?
I prefer to keep it simple and low maintenance… in ground rather than in a pot. dont mind pruning… hard if needed.
In a post here i found a link to perfect circle farm and descriptions for kip parker… heavy bearer delicious.
No mention of berry size… tree size, zone
No details on what they consider delicious.
They described Kokuso as dark purple berries with great flavor z5 hardy.
No mention of great flavor details.
No mention of berry or tree size.
I have 3 mulberries already… gerardi, silk hope, oscar…
Hoping to find other varieries that are perhaps a little different than those…
Larger fruit for example… ripens later… or earlier than those (to extend fresh eating). Small to medium tree size would be preferred over large. Less pruning required.
Outstanding flavor and sweetness would be good.
Outsranding flavor + sweetness + tartness would be ideal (delicious).
I have heard many youtubes describe gerardi as delicious… including Jan Doolin…
But to me it is good… has good flavor and sweetness… but no tart.
To be truly delicious in my book… there has to be some tartness.
Size wise… I would consider a 2" fat berrry…with just good flavor and sweetness. Good taste.
But would consider a smaller berry 1 to 1.5" with good flavor sweetness and tartness.
A 2" fat berry with good flavor, sweetness, tartness… would be the bomb.
The Georgia Stubbs mulberry checks many of my boxes… if the description is accurate.
zone 5-9… should work well for my 7b.
Black fruit 2"
Tree 10 ft (quite small)
Prolific producer of flavorful fruit.
More details on the flavor needed.
@krismoriah … have you grown Stubbs ?
I think I read that you were trying it ?
Following. im borderline z5 now so many of those may do well in a protected site here. i have Riverview, Northrup, 2 i.e’s, trader and a doz. wild red mulberry planted at the orchard up the mountain. still havent got fruit to compare but hope to this year. they are very late to leaf out here. usually early to mid june. a full month after everything else.i just read a article the other day from health line. mulberry leaf extract is very good for fighting inflammation, heart and liver heath, reducing blood sugar and alot more i forgot about so dry and make tea from the leaves. its very good all around.
Kokuso is one of my better mulberries. Fruit are larger than IE and it sets heavily, though all the fruit does ripen at the same time.
When my tree ripens the yard smells like a winery for about a week.
The tree is about the size of a standard plum, so it is smaller than IE.
I like the fruit, but they lack much in the way of tartness, especially when fully ripe.
I really should try collecting and juicing them and perhaps fermenting as my yard is going to smell like it already.
I was driving home from work about 10 days ago and got stopped in traffic for a few minutes. I looked up and noticed a mulberry tree loaded with fairly large ripe fruit. Another one next to it had just a few that had turned black, with many at the red stage. This seems super early. I assume pure M. alba due to the earliness. Too bad they were out of reach above a fairly busy road.
There are a couple more near my house that are also high above a busy road. They ripen much later and didn’t seem to have any popcorn disease last year that I could see, something that seems to severely affect all the albas in the area. Could be M. rubra, but not sure I can figure out a way to get samples. I do get some very rubra-like seedlings in my yard, along with many more alba/hybrids.
I am starting to think that the Stubbs mulberry does not actually exist… can’t find an actual picture of it online (did find a drawing) cant find anyone online saying they have it, no place selling them… no mention of it on youtube.
It is raining here today… so I am still doing searches for mulberry details… some of what I have found.
The first 3 in that image above are the ones I have now.
The rest are some that sound interesting to me although not all details I need are there.
That list mentioned that Miss Kim was available at Englands Orchard… I found these details there.
It looks to be a nice large berry compared to the others on that plate… larger than Oscar and IE.
Cliff only describes the taste as “very tasty”. Would be nice to know if there is any tartness.
If it just has good fruity flavor and nice sweetness… I might consider adding it because of the size.
I like big berries.
Found this description of Miss Kim on Peacefulheritage site…
Known to do well in the South… hey that’s me. Another plus for Miss Kim.
Good info on Miss Kim. I didn’t know they were that big. Will look into adding it to my collection as well.
Thanks!
Oh well… did some reading here on the board … members comments on how Miss Kim taste and the size. Not good… this was from a member in z8b Texas.
Eliza Greenman (now at the Savanna Institute) may have Stubbs… IDK anyone else who might have it. I’m a bit skeptical about it… like ‘Hicks Everbearing’, it was a staple on Southern farmsteads in the 19th century as a source of forage for pigs & chickens - which don’t cull much. I have Hicks, and I’m singularly unimpressed with it - I can take you to any number of random albaXrubra hybrids that are much heavier bearers, with larger berries and better flavor.
I had Kokuso for years… but it was just a couple of low branches in a M.alba tree. Big berries, sweet but not much flavor, IMO. I removed the branches a couple of years ago, as they were interfering with mowing/driving. Haven’t missed it. Perhaps as a free-standing tree with plenty of sun, it would have been better.
It’s hard to beat ‘Illinois Everbearing’ for production and flavor, but if you plant it in the south, Popcorn Disease will eventually find it. I’d say somewhere between 25-50% of berries in the current first flush of fruiting on my IE trees are affected. Later fruits will generally be unaffected, but the first flush is the heaviest.
I have one I call ‘Corral’, that I’d initially thought was a seedling of IE… but my understanding is that IE is a triploid and does not produce viable seeds. Anyway… it’s very similar to IE in productivity, berry size, flavor. No Popcorn DZ yet, but it’s several hundred yards from the IE trees.
‘Stearns’ is a rubraXalba hybrid that was sent to me by Ted Daniecki(NJ). Had its first crop last year as a free-standing tree… really nice tasty berries, longer/fatter than IE. Is really loaded this year, and looks like it’ll be ripening later, in synch with Silk Hope.
The ‘Lawson Dawson’ ortet is about 10 miles from me; a co-worker who cut hay on that farm put me on to it. It has garnered good reviews from folks growing it in NJ & VT. It responds well to ‘fertility’… the ones in the barnyard fence, with horses/cattle lounging (and doing what they do) beneath it produce larger, tastier berries than the one out in the middle of the yard. This may be true for all mulberries, IDK. Photo is current flush of fruiting on LD.
‘Kip Parker’… just grafted several trees of it last year; grew like crazy! But experienced some pretty significant tip die-back… and as a result, most of the scionwood I collected is no good. Ohio origin, so this may just be a ‘young tree’/excessive vigor deal that it’ll grow out of.
‘Orlinda’ came from our friend Kevin (@thecityman), who helped rescue it from removal by utility crews; I’ve had it growing for about 3 years, but keep cutting it back to send scionwood to other growers… not gonna do that next year… I want to see it have a chance to fruit and sample the berries.
I’ve got a couple more that were sent to me last year… Dixie Everbearing, Boyleston Everbearing. No fruit yet, and no details from the folks who sent scionwood.
‘Varaha’ originated in The Highlands area of old Louisville KY; Blake has claimed it’s M.rubra, but my suspicion, from description and knowing The Highlands, where there’s a crappy M.alba in every fencerow, crack in the sidewalk, or untended hedge, is that it’s a hybrid.
Thanks for the details @Lucky_P … appreciate it.
I considered trying IE… but heard about the Popcorn Disease… and that Silk hope is a very good mulberry and is resistant to PD. I no longer consider IE.
I may be completely happy with just the 3 that I have… gerardi, silk hope, oscar… and do some duplicating of them for more fruit.
I will keep my ears open on Vahara, Kip Parker… and others… no big rush here.
TNHunter
Hmm, thats not good. I think I will still give it a try 
See what you think about these. I got some started last year from him.
I just got some cuttings of this . Seems similar to World’s Best but we will see.
