| Author | Content |
LTilton
Glen Ellyn, IL (Zone 5b)
March 18, 2008 3:50 PM Post #4678529
| How I hate them! Mulberry seedlings sprouting up everywhere, tenacious as buckthorn, so hard to pull out! |
roybird
Santa Fe, NM
March 18, 2008 4:54 PM Post #4678808
| I'm with you! We have two big ones in our back yard. We didn't plant them; they were here. They make a huge mess and don't stop the birds from eating our other fruit. For my high desert area, however, they are excellent shade trees. |
Aunt_A
 March 19, 2008 4:44 AM Post #4681271
| Sounds like you voted for "foe".
:-)
Thanks for commenting. They do make a mess! |
daigu
San Anselmo, CA (Zone 9a)
March 24, 2008 12:40 PM Post #4702128
| The house we now occupy has two medium sized red Mulberry trees. Every year we are overwhelmed by seedlings popping up. They are like Goldenrod, propagating by root extensions that go as far as 40 yards from the two trees. We spend our summers pulling up and chopping seedlings. If yoyu miss one and let it get over about two feet it has to be dug out and then removed. The trees never fruit in our dry climate and the wood is useless as either firewood or decoration. Truly these are monumental Trash Trees!!
DON'T PLANT ONE...you'll be sorry. |
docgipe
NORTH CENTRAL, PA (Zone 5a)
March 24, 2008 12:51 PM Post #4702161
| I tried for years to achieve success by actually planting purchased White Mulberry trees. Alas after years of failures for unknown reasons the birds planted one in the middle of another jungle I wished I had not ever started. Years later I discovered my jewel and then proceeded to blast away the competing jungle that did in fact provide the cover crop for both the birds and the Mulberry. It is like Grand Central Station in New York for the birds when the fruit is present. We settled finally for the purple which most wish they might have never known. The fruit is ninety nine percent for the birds. We make one pie a year. I have seen our yellow beakers (starlings) with rose colored beaks. Hogs they are but all of us have enough to go around every year. Yes my dirty old garden hat has a few purple dimples on it too. |
scottsmom
Point Phillips , PA (Zone 6b)
March 24, 2008 1:37 PM Post #4702332
| Don't forget how hard it is to wash your light colored cars after you've unknowingly parked under one of those trees!
Or, worse yet, when you don't park under the tree but the bird sitting above your car has feasted on the fruit in another part of town! |
docgipe
NORTH CENTRAL, PA (Zone 5a)
March 24, 2008 3:14 PM Post #4702796
| Guess this comes down to the phrase...One man's gold is another man's junk. If I should change my mind the Mulberry still can not stand up to a chainsaw. |
KansasRose
Belleville, KS (Zone 5b)
March 24, 2008 4:03 PM Post #4702978
| Mulberries are common in my area of Kansas...most trees were planted by earlier homesteaders on the farms we now live on. I have fond childhood memories of picking mulberries for my pet racoon to eat (I never loved them myself). Older ladies tell me that mulberries are the perfect companion to gooseberries in pies and jams. The blandness of the mulberries tones down the tartness of the gooseberries.
My best mulberry memories are of my son when he was four or five, bringing a stepladder out to the big tree next to our chicken house, so he could stand on it to reach more berries to pop in his mouth. He was almost always barefoot so he went around with purple feet for a few weeks each summer. I would never get rid of that tree! |
buildcastles
Benzonia, MI
June 16, 2010 10:05 AM Post #7893736
| Back on the farm a neighbor had a purple mulberry tree. Great childhood memories!
Couldn't get enough.
http://www.houseforsaleweb.com/
Click the image for an enlarged view.
|
