Morus Nigra bare root - espalier?

[Brack]

Came this morning from YouGarden/eBay. at £12 including postage I succumbed to the temptation. I've spent 2 years umming and ahhing about buying a big king james/chelsea* mulberry but could never justify the cost/space.



It was described as an 80-90cm bare root on the listing title, but in the description it said 60cm. It is actually about 1m, although if I'd been intending to grow it as a standard or half standard I might be a little annoyed at it having been topped off at a few inches and two stems grown from it. As it happens my thoughts are mostly that I don't have a 30' round space for it so I might espalier it against a W or SW facing fence. Unless I could keep reasonably (10-12') small as a bush? I don't know what experience anyone else has. The ends of both branches were a bit bent over/damaged from the container - it arrived loose in a tall cardboard box with a big of clingfilm wrapped around the roots (no sand/soil/newspaper or whatever, although it wasn't completely bone dry as I think they only sent it out yesterday). I've 'pruned' off the damaged tips (kitchen scissors) and its currently in a bucket soaking in water in the yard. I assume it must've been in a big fridge somewhere to keep it dormant, hence the relatively low price at the end of the season.

I'm assuming that to espalier it I could just bend the two branches horizontal, tie them in to wires and pick new leader from a shoot off a relatively central bud? Although several sites/books have references to espalier training mulberrys I've not seen any Morus nigra actually done like this.

There was a little sprout coming off the roots which I removed. it's green beneath the bark, so rather than chuck it out I've shoved some rooting powder on it and put it in a little pot.



* as an aside, due to the weird genetic arrangements of Morus nigra (14 sets of 22 chromosomes) I've read that there is not actually much difference between cultivars - hard to have much genetic variation with that much polyploidy.

[Ocelot]

Looks healthy. Don't they take about 10 years to fruit, though?

I remember seeing a 6 foot one for about 30 quid at the RHS Wisley shop a few years ago, laden with fruit. I wish I'd bought it, but was too big for the car.

[Brack]

They can take a few years - 7-8 from seed, less from cuttings is what I've read. I thought espalier might also induce fruiting slightly earlier as you're bending branches horizontal and controlling vertical growth. I don't really know what I'm doing, but I've put off purchasing for 2 years as we've done other stuff to the house/garden. Figured I should just bite the bullet and shove one in the soil - if I'd bought a mulberry when we'd moved in it'd be halfway to fruiting by now!

I thought I couldn't be the only one wondering about those £12 morus Nigra from yougarden/eBay, so figured I'd show people what I got.

[devonuk]

This may be a seedling at that price, and black mulberry seedlings can be dioecious (M or F flowers only on the one plant). I would ask the supplier whether it is cutting or seed grown.

[Scarlet]

If you go along the espalier root I would treat it as a maiden tree, cut off the weaker stem and cut the leader down and wait for some side shoots to form.

Though if you are going to put all the effort of training a tree you ideally should have s good start....and it’s very late for bare root trees. It may not make it.