By Steven Biggs
Fowling in Love with Mulberry
My neighbour Hubert handed me a pheasant and a duck from his freezer. I was working for the summer in a rural part of the UK, and regularly saw pheasant when I went out for a jog. Now I’d get to taste one!
As a 20-something-year-old, I’d never cooked either before…and had never even tasted pheasant.
But I remembered reading that the meat is rich and dark, well-suited to a tangy accompaniment.
And I remembered the mulberry tree just outside my door.
I’d been grazing fruit from the mulberry tree every time I walked past it, on my way to work in the greenhouse. But I had yet to cook the mulberry fruit.
This was my chance! Not really sure what I was doing, I made up a mulberry-Cointreau sauce for basting the roast. The company I had for supper thought it was pretty good.
Roasted fowl with mulberry-Cointreau sauce cemented my appreciation for the taste of mulberry.
Mulberry for Home Gardens
There are many types of mulberry suited for gardens in cold climate. Photo by Grimo Nut Nursery.
Mulberries gets a bad rap. Mention mulberries and many people picture polka-dot-stained sidewalks and bird-bespattered cars. Or experienced gardeners worry that it’s a weedy plant.
Why is it that gardeners always want what’s difficult to grow? Why not appreciate what grows on its own? This fruit does not play hard-to-get.
Mulberry is a great fit for home gardens because it’s:
Fast-growing
Hardy
Problem-free
Tolerant of many conditions
Very fruitful
And it’s a fruit that you likely won’t find for sale at grocery stores.
Too bad mulberries get a bad rap for being vigorous growers.…and for the purple stains from falling fruit. They’re a great fruit for home gardens in cold climates.
What does a Mulberry Tree Look Like?
What does it look like? The question should really be, “What does a mulberry tree look like when pruned to feed people, not birds. (More on that below)
Don’t grow this as a specimen shade tree. There are nicer shade trees out there. Grow mulberry as a fruit-producing crop – which means you’ll keep it much smaller than if left unchecked.
Types of Mulberry for Cold Climates
Mulberry names don’t describe the fruit colour. That means a white mulberry tree could be black-fruited, red-fruited, or white-fruited.
If you’re shopping for a mulberry tree, here at the three types you’re likely to find in North America:
• White mulberry (Morus alba)
• Red mulberry (Morus rubra)
• Black mulberry (Morus nigra)
Mulberry names don’t describe the fruit colour. While this ‘Carman’ white mulberry fruit is white, other white mulberry varieties can be purple or black. Photo by Grimo Nut Nursery.
For cold-climate fruit growers, it’s the white mulberry and its hybrids with the red mulberry that are hardiest, some into USDA zone 4.
I’ve read articles in British gardening magazines that disparage the less flavourful white mulberry…but it’s what we have.
White mulberry can grow up to about 15 metres (50’) tall. Because it grows easily from seed—and because birds quickly spread the seeds—feral white mulberry trees are common. (It’s considered a weed tree in some jurisdictions.)
Red mulberry is a native of North America. Pure red mulberry trees are rare because feral white mulberry and red mulberry hybridize readily. Here in Ontario, where red mulberry is native in the south of the province, its threatened by the white mulberry due to their promiscuous hybridizing.
The more diminutive black mulberry, noted for the quality of its fruit, is less hardy, and not suited to northern gardens. It’s suited to conditions in USDA zones 6 and higher.
Other thoughts on selecting a mulberry tree:
I was excited that my first house already had a weeping mulberry…and sad when I learned that it was a variety that did not form fruit.
There are weeping varieties that get to about 3 metres (10’) tall and can be perfect for small-space gardens (just beware, as there are fruitless varieties of weeping mulberry on the market)
There are dwarf varieties that get to about 6 metres (20’) tall
White-fruited varieties might be the ticket is you’re averse to mulberry stains
‘Illinois Everbearing’ is noted for having a long season of fruiting
Plant a Mulberry Tree
Mulberry trees fend for themselves quite well once established, but here are things you can do to give them a good start.
If you’re planting a container-grown mulberry tree, the first thing to do is look at the roots. Because mulberry is a vigorous grower, it’s common to find roots tightly wound around and knitted together.
Use your fingers to tease apart the roots. We want the roots to grow outwards into the surrounding soil once planted, not continue to grow around in circles.
Water well when first planted and until established.
Pruning Mulberry Trees
Many sources suggest that regular pruning is not necessary with mulberry.
That’s fine if you want to feed the birds.
But if you’re growing the mulberries for yourself, I suggest a different approach: Be aggressive – and do it every year.
Your goal is to create a permanent scaffold of branches that you cut back to every year (see below).
Formative Pruning
Grow mulberry trees in an umbrella shape, so you can reach all of the fruit. Photo by Grimo Nut Nursery.
The best way to get a tree with a well-arranged scaffold is to make it yourself. Get a whip, which is a young, unbranched tree. (You probably won’t find this sort of tree at a garden centre; look for a specialist fruit-tree nursery.)
Then prune that whip so that it grows into a spreading tree. Think short and wide.
Start this pruning process by removing the “leader,” which is the growing tip of the tree. Linda Grimo, at Grimo Nut Nursery, a specialist nursery, suggests, “Stand as tall as you can with your pruners in your hand and clip off the top of the tree.” She explains that this stops it from growing upwards, and encourages the growth of side branches at a height you can reach without a ladder.
Umbrella-shaped mulberry tree in summer. Prune hard to keep berries at picking height. Photo by Grimo Nut Nursery.
Grimo says she likes to grow mulberry trees in an umbrella-shaped scaffold, with side branches (laterals) spaced out around the tree. For ease of getting under the tree to pick, don’t grow the side branches too low on the tree; her preferred height is just over a metre (4’) above the ground.
Annual Pruning
Mulberry trees growing in good soil puts on a tremendous amount of growth every year. After formative pruning is complete, prune back almost all of the new growth every year, leaving just 1-2 buds from which the tree can send up a replacement shoot.
This harsh pruning doesn’t affect cropping because fruit forms on new growth. “Don’t be afraid, you can’t kill a mulberry tree,” is what Grimo tells concerned first-time mulberry growers.
Prune in late winter, when dormant.
Mulberry Tree Feed and Water
Mulberry trees have extensive root systems, which means that they can do quite well without coddling.
Mulch with compost around the base of the tree to feed the soil and suppress weed growth.
Covering more than 20 fruits, the focus is easy-to-grow fruit suited to northern gardens. Fruits include cherry-family crops, currants, cane fruit such as raspberry and blackberry, elderberry, serviceberry and saskatoon, haskap, plum family, medlar, melon, husk cherries...and more! Find out more here.
Mulberry Tree Pollination
Mulberry trees are self-fertile, which means you only need one tree to get fruit.
The small, unremarkable flowers are wind pollinated. (There are even some varieties that set fruit without pollination.)
Mulberry Tree Propagation
Mulberry plants grown from seed will be different from the parent plant, just like apples. There is a juvenile period before a seed-grown mulberry tree will flower and produce fruit, often 5-10 years.
It’s easy to grow from seed. In fact, this is a tree that might just seed itself in your garden.
So I don’t recommend growing mulberry from seed, because you don’t know what the fruit quality will be like—and you’ll have to patiently wait through that juvenile stage.
Another unknown if growing from seed: Some mulberry trees are dioecious, meaning male and female flowers are on separate plants.
If you want good fruit quickly, start with a known variety. Clonally produced trees—grafts and cuttings—can fruit right away because the clone is from a mature tree, and no longer in the juvenile stage.
Some nurseries propagate mulberry by cutting, some by grafting. For grafting, Grimo says cleft grafts work well. Propagation from cuttings can be more challenging for home gardeners without a misting system, bottom heat, and rooting hormone.
Mulberry Trees in Garden Design
Dwarf or weeping mulberry varieties are well-suited to use in small-space foodscapes, even in more traditional gardens.
Mulberry trees are quite versatile in garden design. Here are ideas for using mulberry trees in the landscape:
Dwarf or weeping varieties are well-suited to use in small-space foodscapes
Large, minimally pruned mulberry trees can be used for a canopy layer in a food forest
Smaller mulberry varieties can fit a forest-edge niche in a food forest because the tree tolerates partial shade
From a permaculture perspective, mulberry is an interesting option because along with fruit, it can provide poles and animal fodder (see below)
Mulberry for More than the Fruit
Because it grows very quickly, mulberry is well suited to pollarding and coppicing techniques. Here are branches from my neighbour’s mulberry pollard that I use as poles in the garden.
Mulberry is an excellent tree choice if you’re gardening with a permaculture mindset.
My neighbour Troy used to give his mulberry tree a harsh haircut every year. The long, straight branches made excellent poles that he gave me for staking plants and making trellises.
He grew his tree as a “pollard,” meaning he lopped off all of the growth a few feet above the ground. (Pollarding is often done with catalpa trees, for ornamental purposes.)
The other twist on this idea of using your mulberry tree to produce poles, is to grow it as a “coppice.” Coppicing is when you cut off a tree close to the ground to get it to send out lots of stems. Coppicing has traditionally been used to produce wood for baskets, fences, and fuel.
Mulberry Tree Location
Mulberry trees prefer full sun and rich soil. But they tolerate partial shade and a variety of soils.
And much worse.
To say they’re forgiving of poor conditions is an understatement.
I’ve seen lovely mulberry trees growing between cracks in the pavement. They do amazingly well in inhospitable locations. As I write this I’m looking out the window at the self-seeded mulberry tree in my front garden that I’m training into an espalier. It’s growing right underneath a row of spruce trees, hardly an ideal location. But it persists!
So save the prime real estate in your garden for plants that really need it. Your mulberry isn’t fussy. And, remember, pick a spot where purple spotting is not a nuisance.
The one thing to avoid is standing water. Pick a well-drained location, though occasional wetness is fine.
Challenges
Your mulberry tree will be a bird beacon.
Got a white car? Hanging out clothes to dry?
Then you might want to net the tree to keep away the birds. Netting is easier to do when you’ve grown a compact mulberry tree.
Harvest and Store Mulberries
If you’ve started with a tree grown from a graft or cutting, you might start getting fruit in as little as 2-3 years.
Not all the fruit on a tree ripens at the same time. As they ripen, fruit fall to the ground.
White mulberries can be very sweet, not balanced with tartness like the black mulberry. For that reason, if I want mulberries for fresh eating, I prefer to pick them a little bit under ripe. I let them colour up a bit, but not get fully ripe.
A couple notes on picking mulberries:
The fruit are fragile, and the juice easily comes out of the fruit when picked…so expect red hands if it’s a dark-coloured variety
Ripe fruit will drop from tree as you pick
A common recommendation when harvesting from large mulberry trees with many unreachable fruit above is to place a sheet on the ground and shake the branches.
The fruit has a short life once picked. There’s a little stem on it – and you can eat it stem and all.
Mulberries in the Kitchen
You can use mulberries raw, use them in preserves, or cook them. Here are ideas:
Mulberry pie
Mulberry wine
Mulberry cobbler
Mulberry liqueur
Dried mulberries (great in a trail mix!)
Mulberry juice
Mulberry FAQ
How fast do mulberry trees grow?
Mulberry trees grow very quickly.
Where do mulberry trees grow?
White mulberry and its hybrids are suited to cold-climate gardens into USDA zone 4. Black mulberry is less cold-tolerant.
Can you grow a mulberry tree from a cutting?
Yes. You can grow mulberry trees from cuttings.
Do mulberries grow on trees or bushes?
Mulberries naturally have a tree form, but you can prune to encourage branching and a bush-like shape.
Can you grow a mulberry tree in a pot?
Cold-climate gardeners who are determined to try black mulberry can grow it in a pot that is stored in a protected area over the winter.
How do you keep a mulberry tree small?
Prune it very aggressively every year.
Do mulberry trees grow near black walnut trees?
Mulberry trees are not affected by the compound “juglone” that is given off by black walnut trees. So if a black walnut tree has limited your growing options, consider mulberry.
Covering more than 20 fruits, the focus is easy-to-grow fruit suited to northern gardens. Fruits include cherry-family crops, currants, cane fruit such as raspberry and blackberry, elderberry, serviceberry and saskatoon, haskap, plum family, medlar, melon, husk cherries...and more! Find out more here.
More on Growing Fruit
Here are more resources to help you grow fruit.