Here we go round

the mulberry bush. But it’s never a bush it’s a tree.   I’ve been doing a fair bit of research into this tree this week. This farm probably started life as a silk worm farm.   And the mulberry as you probably know was the tree they used to grow the silk worms.   But there are only three of these trees left on the entire property. And one of those I only noticed last week.

We have a forest of chestnuts, why not mulberries? The answer seems to lie in its inability to set viable seed.   In most trees the fruit falls and new seedlings emerge. Or the seeds are so fine they blow in the wind and settle elsewhere.   The poor old mulberry doesn’t manage this very well.   Instead it relies on layering.   That is, letting branches grow to the ground, have them root and off they go.   A sort of walking tree. Anything to get the young plants far enough away from the canopy of the parent plant and get some sun.

If I look back in my files I can show you a picture of our lovely split in half tree. And this is the technique: main trunk splits in two, it falls to the ground and new growth emerges. But if you tidy it up (as we did) you don’t get any new plants. Ignorance ain’t bliss.

And of course the wild boar and the deer put paid to any other branches trying to grow to the ground and root.

But the mulberry in the duck pond area of the garden has managed a few long whippy branches which are perfect for layering.   So off I went with some sturdy wire for holding the plant down. And of course some protection.

The deer would think it a delicious delicacy if I left this perfectly juicy branch out for them to sample without having to crane their necks. So I walked down to the lower terraces (goodness, three times in one week, that must be a record) and picked up a large tree protecting mesh.   I had planted three apple trees down here on the lower plot.   Two have taken and are actually producing juicy fruit.   But the old variety of Court Pendu Plat just didn’t like the arid conditions and my erratic watering.   So the proective grill around dead sticks doesn’t really serve a purpose any more. Up it came to be put around the layered mulberry instead.

So in about six months time I will look again and see if I have a baby plant emerging from this process.   And then I shall pot it up and wait until I turn 90 before I get a good sized tree.