Last fall, a reader wrote in with a question that I could hear the panic in—she’d planted a young mulberry tree six feet from her back patio four years earlier because it was the only sunny spot in her yard, and now there was a crack running clean across two paving stones. When she knelt … Read more
Three years ago, I walked into a garden center on a whim and fell completely in love with a tiny tree in a nursery pot. It had this enchanting, cascading shape—like someone had crossed a weeping willow with a fruit tree—and I had exactly one empty terracotta pot on my patio that seemed to be … Read more
Two batches, same recipe, same five pounds of mulberries picked off the same tree an hour apart — and they came out like they were made by two different people. My first batch sat on top of the refrigerator because that was the only flat surface in my kitchen, and three weeks later it hit … Read more
Last spring, a reader from the UK emailed me a photo that stopped me mid-coffee. It showed what looked like a fist-sized cluster of knobby stumps at the top of a mulberry trunk, all sprouting a wild, chaotic halo of whip-thin new shoots reaching in every direction. Her message was worried: Is my tree dying? … Read more
I’ll never forget the afternoon last spring when Margaret from my garden club stood beneath my young white mulberry and delivered the news with absolute certainty: the nursery had sold me three trees in one pot. She walked me slowly around the trunk, pointing at the leaves like a prosecutor presenting evidence. Here was a … Read more
Two summers ago, my neighbor Ruth sold her house. The first thing the buyers mentioned at the fence was that the 40-year-old mulberry shading her back porch was “coming down for a patio.” That tree had fed my family jam for a decade — half its canopy hung over my side. I had exactly one … Read more
It was a Saturday morning in June when my neighbor knocked on the door with a smile that said everything. A mulberry branch the thickness of my forearm was draped across her fence, and below it, her pristine white car looked like it had been tie-dyed in deep purple. She wasn’t angry—mulberry people are patient … Read more
I’ll never forget standing in my backyard on a gray February afternoon, holding a young mulberry sapling and genuinely panicking. The nursery tag said it was “cold hardy,” but I lived in Zone 5, and I’d just read three different websites that each claimed something different about mulberry growing zones. One said my variety would … Read more
It was late April, and my mulberry tree was absolutely exploding with new growth. I was out there with my pruning shears, doing what I do every spring — trimming back the wild branches, shaping it up, trying to keep it from taking over the entire corner of my yard. And suddenly, mid-snip, I stopped … Read more
The weeping mulberry tree has captured my heart for over a decade. Its graceful, drooping branches create an almost ethereal presence in any landscape, and unlike many ornamental trees, it actually produces delicious fruit. If you’re considering adding one to your garden, I want to walk you through everything I’ve learned about successfully growing and … Read more
