some of the most beautiful and sobering photos i have seen are time-lapse ones in tropical areas, where the farmer and kids(and grandkids in succession) pose neath a tropical fig or sapodilla tree. The ageing process is manifested rather ‘quickly’ by us, mortal humans, but the tree-- which asks for practically nothing and yet gives so much–has been there for a hundred-fifty years, and will be there to continue giving for hundreds more.
among deciduous temperate fruit trees, pears live amazingly long. Probably already mentioned here of a 400 yr old pear tree somewhere in the northeast, and reportedly still fruitful. Some mulberries will live and be fruitful for just as long. Jujubes and certain hawthorns could easily be productive for >1000 years.
that is, if grafted onto a seedling, or grown from seed-- and not grafted to or grown from a sucker-- which may have been obtained serially from a mother plant which already is 1200 years old, lol
I’m surprised to hear you say that of mulberries. I see them as fast growing, short lived trees and they have never disappointed me on either count. They get some weird and not well known canker disease here(I had 3 Cornell pathologists strike out on a diagnosis). But such fast maturing, soft wooded species usually don’t live long.
At My cottage is a Mulberry tree about 50 feet tall. It is really old! Only one branch is low enough to harvest. Not that good anyway. One on the beach about 20 years old grew lower and produces super good fruit. I think these are native trees? Not sure, think so though. I don’t see any canker or anything on them. Very healthy looking.
Nooooooo! That means the bird-planted giant clump of mulberry in next to my yard on the city’s property that is general a hazard to property and aesthetics will be there forever? I keep hoping they will die so I can make the city come out and cut them down. Thankfully they are all male!.. probably a single plant that got mowed off and sent up suckers.
My wife and I bought a house with a modest, fenced backyard with no pool, so that we could turn our children loose. Yesterday, my four year old asked if she could play a game on my iPad (she gets up to five minutes per day, no television). I told her it was fine, but that I was going outside to work in the garden. She kissed the iPad, set it on the couch, and ran after me.
Today I was planting a mulberry in our backyard. She asked what it was (we’ve never planted a mulberry here before.) I told her. She started laughing and told me that a “pollen thing had fallen off of a fruitless mulberry at preschool and gotten stuck in teacher Sarah’s hair.” Four years old! Teaching our children to respect the natural world is such an amazing thing. One of my favorite aspects of being a newer parent.
i was pertaining to black mulberries, and certain white mulberries. Quite likely you’re growing a rubra or a supposed hybrid with alba, which don’t really live long, although for mulberries, rubras and hybrids seem to be the most cold-resistant.
in las vegas, ~99% of mulberry trees planted by landscapers are male… which personally don’t favor because there aren’t many fruit trees which do well with neglect, little water, and zero pesticides in this city(or any us city!), and the pollen from catkins is a scourge to locals and visitors alike. Have met people advising against coming here around spring, just for that reason…
going back to your clump of mulberry, if it is a red mulberry, it should attain the relatively short lifespan of humans of ~75, although some say rubras may reach 125. If it is a white mulberry, it should be fruitful much longer than 100 yrs. If it is a nigra, there’s a chance it could attain hundreds of years of age if you are in a warm and dry location, but if you are in a region where winters are cold and summers are humid, then it will probably die much sooner than either an alba or a rubra, or hybrid of the latter two.
male morus nigra’s supposedly exist, but i doubt if it has been imported into usa.
I can still remember very, very vividly when I was in early grammar school (k to 2ed grade time frame) our teacher had every student do the most simple little “experiment” in the world. We each took a zip-lock bag and some toilette paper we wrapped around our hands several times to make a loose little roll which we wet and put inside the baggie. We were then given bean seeds to lay on top of the wet tissue paper inside the baggie. Of course in a few days the seeds started to germinate. It was pure magic to me! Its funny looking back and wondering why some of us (like me) were so captivated by this little project and some were not. Not to be too dramatic, but for me it was a life changing project, in spite of its simplicity and low cost, I still trace my love of gardening to to that little project. I was also lucky enough to have parents who- even though they didn’t garden at all- catered to my excitement. At my request, they somehow procured more bean seeds for me (perhaps just from the kitchen cabinets) so I could repeat that little project at home over, and over, and over! Again, hard to explain why my bedroom became filled with little bean sprouts and other kids didn’t, but maybe some of you can relate. Both and school and at home I (we) ended up potting some of the seeds in cups, but that’s about as far as it went (never made it in ground back then).
I seriously doubt there are any classes today doing that simple little project, but if it were required for all 1st graders, it might fuel public attitudes toward gardening and might create a lot more people like all of us! Its amazing how a 10 minute, 25 cent project like that might change lives and gardening attitudes of a new generation of young people.
Yes, my experience is only in the east. Still, in good conditions I expect even peach trees can live to be over 100. How would you rate the longevity of mulberries compared to most other fruit trees in optimum conditions?
that’s good news, although quite unheard of, at least to me. And if a peach could be fruitful for 100 years(and not just alive), then that’s even more amazing.
theoretically, peaches and all other short-lived fruit trees already are living ‘indefinitely’, but only with the hand of man. And at least just the budwood. The peach budwood we’ve grafted from disease-free trees with ageing rootstocks, when grafted to a seedling rootstock, are perpetuated practically forever. It is a series which has been carried out for thousands of years by the ancient chinese.
lifespan depends on the longevity and hardiness of the rootstock, so serially grafting conferred some degree of immortality.
in practice, it boils down to the number of years the peach can be productive, and the number of years it will be vigorous enough to withstand stressors/pests/diseases.
thus said-- with regards to mulberries, black mulbs(supposedly the longest-lived among mulbs) will only live as long as its rootstock. Thankfully, the most commonly available rootstoclks are white mulbs, which live much longer than rubras. Some white mulbs planted back in the day when people in america were encouraged to start a silk industry lived a long time. There’s also this white mulb supposedly planted by george washington which lived for centuries(not sure if it still alive), which national geographic reported to have been cloned for posterity’s sake.
and yes, black mulbs are extremely slow-growing, they are beginning to hurt my feelings lol