Mulberry trees
Mulberries are large trees with ornamental appeal. They produce abundant small fruits rather like blackberries.
Carman
An unusual mulberry, with large sweet white fruits. Carman starts fruiting at a much younger age than other mulberries.- Picking season: Early
- Self-fertility: Self-fertile
Illinois Everbearing
An American hybrid mulberry, producing long black fruits from an early age.- Self-fertility: Self-fertile
King James 1st
A traditional English mulberry from the 17th century, also known as Chelsea.£70.00buy- Self-fertility: Self-fertile
Mojo Berry®
A new dwarf mulberry tree with edible fruits which reaches a maximum height of around 1.5m.£74.00buy- Picking season: Early
- Self-fertility: Self-fertile
Pakistan Giant Fruit
A high quality mulberry from Islamabad, with very large fruits.- Self-fertility: Self-fertile
How to choose Mulberry trees
Mulberries are sweet fruits which bruise easily and do not keep. For this reason they are rarely available in shops, and growing your own is a good option.
Mulberries are slow-growing fruit trees which eventually get quite large (although there some dwarf varieties). They are easy to grow, and usually unaffected by diseases, and self-fertile.
Mulberries come out of dormancy very late in the spring, around the end of May, when most other trees are already in full leaf.
The fruit is borne throughout the canopy of the tree, generally out of reach from the ground - the usual method of picking is by shaking the branches when the fruit is ripe in late August. However you may need to net the tree (or some of the branches) as the fruits are popular with birds.
Pruning is not usually necessary and best avoided in older trees.
Most of our mulberries are raised from cuttings, rather than seed.
All the mulberries we supply are self-fertile, or "monoecious", with male flowers which can be pollinated from other pollen on the same tree. However older mulberry trees can ocasionally become "dioecious". In other words they change sex - the flowers switch from male to female. They will still produce fruit, but only if another mulberry with male flowers is nearby. The cause for this switch is not known, but is thought to be a response to a sudden change in the local environment.
Being naturally slow-growing most Mulberries can be grown in large pots or planters for a decade or more, although trees grown this way may eventually need to be planted in open ground.
There is a long tradition of growing mulberry trees in the UK, especially in the London area. In the early 17th century King James 1st actively encouraged the planting of mulberry trees in London in an effort to start an English silk industry. There is some debate as to whether King James and his advisors knew that sikworms preferred to eat the leaves of the White Mulberry species, but either through ignorance or because they found that White Mulberries were not suited to the English climate (which was much colder then than it is now) the vast majority of mulberry trees planted at this time were the Black Mulberry species. Silk production never took off in London, but left a legacy of Black Mulberry trees throughout the capital, and since these are long-lived trees many stil survive. For more details of Mulberry trees in London, see this article on the Spitalfields blog.