I have a beautiful tall and shady mulberry tree in my backyard. It was planted by people who lived here before us. They said they thought it was a "fruitless" mulberry...but it is not. Each year the mess from the tree great bigger. Is there anyway to stop the tree from bearing fruit...outside of cutting it down?

 

Hello, Richard

I have some Ideas. However I would like to know if cutting the tree is a good idea to you. Or if you are willing to do what is needed to catch the fruit for disposal.

 

Cutting down the tree is a last resort. It provides shade to the garden and more importantly to the house. Air conditioning is helped in our hot Sacramento Summer conditions. Electric rates here are getting higher and higher. What are my options?

 

We had a beautiful Mulberry that hung half over the drive way in Ohio. What a mess so I know what you mean.

What we did was to take 10ft bamboo poles and made a skeleton structure. If you can picture 4 feet up the trunk we used hemp rope to make a donut stop. the bamboo poles were lashed together to make 15 feet then at their ends we tied the 15 footers to upright poles at 8 feet high. Now we used bamboo to tie in between the upright poles that had a wooden stake driven into the ground to tie the up right poles to, at the bottom.

What we made was a funnel from 8 foot to 4 foot & covered it with clear plastic so the berries would fall and roll to the trunk. We picked them up every few days & made jam & wine. Or you could just rake them, up and through them away.

The tree was in an area where wind did not prove to be a problem. However today I would use the black or white screen type Green House shade cloth to let wind & rain go through yet still let the berries fall towards the trunk.

We don't have any trees this large here in NC, but have used a smaller version for our cherry trees with bird netting over top. To let the fruit drop right at the trunk for easy bruise free harvest.

I have seen some people use 18 inch stakes in circles around the tree with the Green House shade cloth draped over the stakes. This keeps the berries off the ground but takes more work to get the berries off than the funnel shape that let's them roll to the trunk. This was not a new idea as some people used this upside down unbrella to keep their fruit from hitting the ground and bruiseing long before we read about it.

You will have to design the funnel to fit your needs & today we have a lot if synthetic fine weve netting that will not sail like the old clear plastic did. However this is the same idea a tree diaper to keep the fruit from covering the ground.

The only other thing I think may work is a chemical thinner used to abort a percentage of flowers on Apple trees to reduce the overall fruit load. Even then, I don't know it that will abort enough flowers to do more than make the remaining berries bigger.

People who have never owned a full grown Mulberry tree have no idea how much of a mess they can make of a yard.

Maybe some one else will have a better idea. This worked for us & the tree was a great source of shade & jam, wine etc. I would hate to see you have to cut it down

 

Was that on Ross Ave in Cinti? Same deal with me in our old house in Cinti. It's now a rental but we lived in it for 10 years. Great shade but what a weed. I could trim it back off the house and wires and next season it would be grown right back.
And the purple/white bird messes on everybodies cars didn't make me popular either.

 

Hi mattison

That was in a small seldom heard place named Iberia Oh. When I left in 79, it felt more like Siberia

 

Contact your local Dept. of Agriculture Extension Agent for recommendations regarding chemical controls. Hormone and other sprays have reported mixed results. Mulberry trees are persistent and very hardy.

I once lived on a property that had multiple white mulberry trees. They were a misplaced thicket in the landscape. I spent many days sawing them down the old-fashioned way with my bow saw. I am little, but determined.

Little did I know then that they were so shallow rooted and the roots extended everywhere into the yard. My removal of the trees stimulated root growth and I had a zillion mulberry trees wanting to survive and popping up everywhere in the yard. I recut the main stump and poured on 'stump rot.' I was persistent about eliminating shoots off the root system. It took me 4 years, but when I moved from that place, there was no sign of the mulberry infestation.

 

I too lived in Ohio...Lakewood...worked at WKYC Cleveland in 1972-3. Didn't have a mulberry tree there though...just a wonderful home a block from the lake adjacent to the Lakewood park. Nice to hear about people with the same problem. My mulberry here in Sacramento is huge...but another of my problems is my neighbor's bamboo trees. So if I decided to build an inverted umbrella to catch the berries...I'll have plentry of bamboo for the poles. Now I need a couple of things. Recipes for mulberry wine and jam.

 

You need to head over to Amazon.com & pick up a paper back called making Country Wines. Or faster yet go to www.google.com an punch in making Country Wines.

We have a great little store called (Assembly Required) mke your own Cheese, Bread & Wine yea what a delicious Hobby

 

Wait till the bamboo starts growing into your yard.