I love mulberries. I have a few mulberry trees and really should get some more. They are such an underrated tree and they have so many uses, both on acreage as well as in backyards.
I have a white mulberry that I grew from a tiny cutting. This is a lovely and hard working tree. It gets larger and stronger each year even though I planted it in a really bad position, it tries hard to fruit no matter how difficult the situation and pumps out a lot of berries, it grows many large tasty leaves, the berries taste good, and it doesn't stain things. The berries are very sweet, some ripen white, some lavender, some pinky, and some can ripen a bit darker.
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| White mulberry - all picked from the same tree |
I also have a white shahtoot mulberry tree. The berries from this little tree are long, they don't stain, it produces numerous berries per bud, and they taste like honey ripened apricots.
Unfortunately this tree is determined to die in my garden. Every summer it grows larger, it survives winter well, in spring it starts to bud all over, and then large parts die back for no apparent reason. I can't work out why, but there is something about spring that the tree does not cope with in my garden. It is fine in summer, autumn, and winter, but for some reason does not like spring.
I love the taste of these berries, but am pretty sure that I will lose it one day because I don't think it is well suited to my climate. That is too bad as it really does taste great.
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| Shahtoot mulberry |
I originally didn't want to get a dark fruited mulberry because I am now in town and they tend to stain things, but to be honest they probably taste better than the lighter coloured mulberries.
I have never eaten a black mulberry (Morus nigra), but am told they taste far superiour to white mulberries (Morus alba) or mulberry hybrids. I am yet to even see a black mulberry tree, I see plenty white mulberry trees with dark fruit that are incorrectly labelled as black mulberry, but have never seen an actual black mulberry tree. Hopefully these currently exist in Australia.
I really should look around and see if I can find a nice tasting mulberry, who cares if it stains, and grow this as well. I am sure my kids will pick most of the berries so they won't have a chance to stain anything.
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| Mulberries - shahtoot and white mulberry |
I have a black mulberry tree in my chook pen, and my mum has one in her garden, I grew up eating mulberries and also endured mulberry stained clothes from the bats that would eat them at night. I'm sure you'll be able to find one somewhere! I am also trying to strike some cuttings to sell.
ReplyDeleteHi Treen,
Deleteare you sure you have black mulberry (Morus nigra) and not just a dark fruiting white mulberry (Morus alba)? Most albas have dark staining fruit. Black mulberry is super slow growing, and the dormant buds are very fat, usually fatter than the branch they are growing on.
I have seen plenty of garden stores selling white mulberry labelled as 'black mulberry'. Every online place in Australia I see claiming to have black mulberry either has a picture of white mulberry or a description of white mulberry.
Let me know when you have rooted some cuttings as I am interested regardless of what you have as long as they taste good!