Planted my order of mulberries from Lucile at Whitman Farms (www.whitmanfarms.com/) yesterday so thought I’d share some pictures. I usually prefer to order from nurseries in the southeast, but I liked the selection at Whitman so I called and ended up ordering four based on excellent input from the awesome Lucile, a second Silk Hope to join the one I have and enjoy so much, an Oscar that I heard so many good things about on this forum, Gerardi Dwarf, and El Dorado that Lucile thought would suit my conditions and taste preference. Cost was 30 each plus 32 shipping for a total of 152. Packaging was best I’ve ever seen.
The Oscar was a little smaller than the others but that does not worry me one bit as the roots are excellent. I could not be happier with this order and I think it was a huge bargain. Thanks to Lucile and Whitman Farms. Love me some mulberries.
Lucile is fantastic. I’ve been eyeballing her James II Mulberry for a while. I can only grow that in a pot up here in Z6b. Her customer service is unparalleled and she simply knows her stuff.
I’ve had a number of purchases with her – all the Gerardi and then I bought my clove currants from her, she’s was always great to deal with and the plants were really good plants. Here’s a few shots from last season (not real clear as I wasn’t setting out to take pics of the Gerardi specifically). The only problem I’ve had is that I keep losing Gerardi in windstorms – they seem to split/break really easily. The red arrows are my 2 remaining Gerardi, both of which have split in the wind pretty severely back in 2021 (these went in probably 2019/2020). The blue arrows are where I had 2 more that the wind knocked down so severely the stump needed to be pulled and I planted other stuff because I got tired of being excited over them growing and then disappointed when they break. I guess I should probably stake them. Very tasty mulberry though!
The clove currants I bought from her at the same time are the red arrow marked in this pic (the currants by them are golden currants I bought from somewhere else, they grow much larger than the clove currants):
I lost half my girardi very quickly. I just woke up one day and half was gone. It was shaped like a V at first. Challenge I had with Girardi was it more seemed to focus on fruiting than growth. A regular mulberry will get massive it 1 year. Girardi will not.
Mine were actually pretty fast growing (for Gerardi), maybe 2-3 ft of growth each year in y1-3 so far (originally planted 3 from 1 gal size in spring 2020) – I pruned them more towards a modified central leader style; however, in year 1 wind knocked down 1 completely below the graft after it grew 2 -3 feet (I reordered another one and planted that Fall 20), same wind split another right down the middle so that one is weirdly shaped now after growing a couple years – it’s open cup style, right from the V in the ground unfortunately with one half of the V with 3-4 foot branches, the other side with only 1 to 1.5 foot branches – so, year 1, that’s plants 1 (killed by wind) plant 2 (split by wind) plant 3 (not damaged by wind y1), plant 4 new plant fall planted to replace plant 1.
Then, year 2, the undamaged year 1 Gerardi grew really well, then wind took it down below the graft – it was really nicely shaped and 4.5 - 5 feet at the time (nearly full grown for Gerardi) – very upsetting! Didn’t replace it with another Gerardi. A separate wind incident split the replacement tree from Fall of year 1, giving it a weird and stunted shrub shape (although after pruning this winter – winter of year 3, it’s starting to look ‘normal’ again to some degree). The 3rd one – the weird lopsided V cup split tree from year 1 somehow didn’t take damage year 2. So that left me with 2 of the 4 I’d planted so far.
Year 3, the same y1 replacement grew nicely and then split again in wind losing 2-3 foot of growth. The weird shaped tree still didn’t take any damage.
Love these little trees and the fruit for my zone is very good – about as good as a mulberry can get – but I can tell, these little guys have caused me lots of heartache! I should maybe stake them but kinda don’t want to have to get in that practice with what I’m growing. Maybe foolish not to. IDK.
I just hope y4 and beyond is kind to them. They’ve been prolific bearers and have good tasting fruit.
If I’d learned to graft, I probably could have done a little better with all the big wind damage stuff. Took some cuttings from prunings this winter but don’t really know what I’m doing there… At least have them on hand in a baggie in the fridge for the time being now…
Yeah, my Gerardi are fairly good growers even here in the north (Z5), 2-3 foot of growth each season in the early years on average – maybe a little more even… Good bearers too. One of those the wind took down was a good 2-1/2 inches on the trunk and proabably 4-5 foot tall…
@Boochaman … last fall the deer finally found mine and ate some of the leaves.
Before it leafs out good this year I was thinking about putting a cattle panel cage around it… to perhaps keep the deer back and support the shoots some in wind storms.
We just had a nasty wind storm but no Girardi damage - but no leaves yet. With those big leaves it has I could see it catching a lot of wind.
Yeah, the leaves definitely catch wind and the branching is so dense they can become sail-like (I don’t really prune them unless they’re dormant unless I really have to – best practices as I understand it for mulberry due to the “bleeding” when they’re not dormant.) I’m in the burbs though – so we get wind but jeez, I didn’t expect it to be to the extent it would knock down trees. I’ve only lost one other plant (one of the clove currants) to wind so maybe they’re weak relative to the other stuff I have growing or I’m just unlucky… lol… We don’t have deer here (yet) so I’m Ok so far in that regard thank goodness. That said, my next door neighbors would take all the leaves if I let them, lol – they use them for medicine. I give them what I can without (hopefully) effecting the tree too much. They’re used to regular mulberries that you can kind of just chop up as much as you want since they grow so fast – not sure if it’s quite getting through to them that these are dwarf cultivars so don’t grow as fast/tolerate as much… But they’re good neighbors. Just kinda funny to see them after my leaves all the time. It’s usually neighborhood kids after the fruit!
Yeah, that’s impressive. I knew when I saw them split the way they were with as much green wood as I had on hand, that if I had any concept of what I was doing with grafting, I’d have had excellent rootstock to graft back onto – I just don’t know what I’m doing there yet/have the supplies either. So wasted opportunity unfortunately. Every time the split it definitely could have been done… But those look good and the other pics you had of the grafts above looked good too. The cattle panel sounds like a good idea for support protection; the only thing I’d watch there is that there’s enough circulation if the space it confined since they grow so dense. Maybe open them up a little extra while they’re still dormant (although maybe stuff isn’t still dormant there where you’re at it looks like)…
Thanks for the tip about possible wind damage. I planted my Gerardi in a windy spot so I might go ahead and stake it just to be safe. I have some loose plastic fencing and removeable stakes around it for deer protection but I want to give it every chance to grow.
Lucile is the best. I always purchase from her over any other nursery when she has what I’m looking for. Always nice sized plants/trees and always well packaged.
