The tree from which my two nigras were layered:
The peaple who mow the meadow keep the blackberries around the new growth as protection from deer and mouflon.
I am too. I lost a Jujube and now only have a contorted quince.
@Tana … here in southern middle TN z7a (now z7b)…
A frost in May would be a very rare event. I dont recall one.
Usually last week in April you can plant tomatoes in the garden here… frost danger is over.
In 2007 we had a hard frost (mid to low 20s)… April 25… best I remember… wild trees poplars hickory oaks etc… had good size leaves already… most ginseng plants were up and out already in the woods… all died… all those tree leaves immediatly turned brown/black eventually fell off … there was the smell of dead vegitation everywhere outside. A little over a month later the trees sent out more leaves… the ginseng plant will only send up one top a year… it was the next spring before ginseng was seen again.
In 2020 we got a 25F on April 15.
I had just done my first thinnig on my Early Mc apple… all apples, peaches and even my grape vine were lost that year. I had just planted a little gerardi mulberry from burnt ridge a couple weeks earlier… it was out already showing new leaves and fruit… it killed every bud on it.
My newly planted CHE… was the same… except 1 bud the lowest one did eventually send out more growth.
That is the problem here we often get warm ups mid to late March… followed a few weeks later with frosts in the low to mid 20s. Zap !!
Any mulberry that comes out with a March warm up… is very likely going to loose all growth a few weeks later.
The last two years my jplums bloom and set fruit early March… only to get zapped a few weeks later… turn black shrivel and fall off.
Noticed this one on Whitmans…(Morus nigra) Noir of Spain Black Mulberry.
Lucille says it can’t stand any zone less than 7 and probably not more than 9… I am z7b.
Not sure how it does with winter cold and late frost issues. I assume when she says can’t stand any zone less than 7… she is talking about winter cold. since I am in 7b… I may be Ok on that.
The last two winters we had 2-3F lows here.
Ross is growing this variety but in a pot. He is North of me quite a bit.
Anyone successfully growing this in z7 ?
Anyone know how it does with March warm ups, followed by hard frosts ?
TNHunter
I’ve had Black Beauty in a pot for over 10 years. Its still small (around 3.5 feet), but I get fruit off it each year. It always wants to wake up and go outside far earlier than I am comfortable with and I have to harden off pale growth hoping not to lose the developing fruit as it aclimates.
This year its been outside for about 2 weeks now and I watch the weather super carefully.
I got it years ago from Burnt Ridge.
Thanks @Chills … I figured it would be a pain in the spring.
My gerardi and silk hope (in ground) had just opened a few buds (late march) when we got our last late hard frost this year. It burnt some of that new growth… but the remaining buds opened soon after and they came on out ok.
When we get another one of those early to mid April hard frosts… they are going to get it pretty bad. I figure in years like that may loose fruit… but they may come back later with growth.
I got permission to share some photos
@Chills check this tree out near Lansing. It appears to be a rubra but I need to confirm that.
Mulberry possibly rubra.
did you get permission from the dead? (I imagine @Drew51 using his Ouija board to get permission here…lol)
Do you know what kind of tree it is?
I replaced a Harry Lauder walking stick a few years back with a Red Dragon contorted hazel, but the growth rate has been so slow…
Wow what a tree. Very ominous in the graveyard 
. Thanks so much for sharing!
Mulberry, looks like rubra with dark buds looking more like nigra than alba.
Yes it does! Knocking at heavens door. We are going to preserve it. The guy who took the photos has a scion that is rooting. I just stuck one in soil today. Two grafted, one looks ok.
thats a beauty!
Very appropriate name . Does it fruit? I would think it would make a mess on the tombstones.
I stumbled upon “Bones” this past December when my GPS took me on a wild goose chase.
I don’t know if its a alba/rubra cross or rubra or nigra. I dont even know if its a male or female.
Like @Drew51 mentioned, I do have 1 cutting rooted and am attempting to root more.
Thank you Drew for helping me with the pictures, that was above my pay scale. Lol
I hear you. We had a similar situation with walnuts (we have 25 trees 10+ meters a d some small) a few years ago. Half the village looked like a botanical funeral and we had to wait 2 years for harvest. The nigras were fine that year - they sprouted later and the damage was only on the most tender leaves. Fruit and new wood was fine. I’d give it a go with a cultivar that’s seen zone 6 and 7 for some centuries. We call it “cold breeding” - tried and selected in tougher conditions. (though it’s mostly used for folk from Northern mountains like myself ). I’d be wary of cultivars reported as tender. Or it will end like my Dunaj kaki persimmon ( a seedling selection of seed harvested in much warmer Bulgaria) - an anual lottery. More good luck than bad, but still potential disappointment every spring.
It’s certainly not a nigra. In the eastern US, they don’t survive colder than zone 8 at best. It’s probably the winter warm spells that do them in more than the cold, along with the lack of disease resistance. Rubras are relatively short lived trees and this contorted one looks really old. It’s very likely a hybrid if the winter buds are dark.
The winter buds are dark colored. The leaves on my cutting are very small yet, but they are not shiny like all the alba’s that I have growing and the veins in the leaves are very pronounced.
I have never seen a Rubra other than in photos , but the leaves look alot like that.
Pretty good article on differentiating M.rubra from M.alba, here:
Several years back, I bought 3 M.nigra from Lucille Whitman - actually 2 nigras and an alba, as at that time, she was calling ‘Persian Black’ a nigra… but it is an alba. She knew, and I knew, that success was unlikely, but my wife WANTED M.nigra, so I gave them a shot. Neither M.nigra survived the first winter. ‘Persian Black’ is still here, but it’s unhealthy, and I keep expecting it to ‘wake up dead’ every spring.
Thank you for that PDF @Lucky_P , i will check it out.
With a little luck i will have Harmony Grove and Workman growing in the backyard this summer for an example of a Morus rubra.
Are the hairs on the underside all over, or only on the veins? There is a huge mulberry here where I work that is part of an arboretum and could easily be >100 years old. It has a plaque on it that says “Morus rubra, Red Mulberry”. It’s not. The leaves do look like rubra on the top (rough), but the hairs on the underside are only on the veins, an alba trait. On pure rubra, the hairs are a little thicker and cover the entire underside. It also has grey winter buds and leafs out and blooms so early it often gets zapped by frost. I think it is definitely a hybrid. Unfortunately, it’s also male.
There is another huge female mulberry across campus that looks more like rubra with darker brown winter buds, but it gets popcorn disease so bad I have not been able to sample any fruit. I need to go check the leaves.
