mulberry

I seem to be on a streak of publishing weeds, or perhaps I should call them "volunteers."

I guess the reason for that is -- I'm inspired by FoodieFarmGirl, who posts daily pics of life on her farm.

If I'm going to post pics of my yard, it's going to be almost all things that I didn't choose in the first place. My yard is very jungly, full of rampant plants which LOVE my climate. Naturally, most of those would be plants I didn't invite.....

Mulberry trees have no place in small suburban yards, as they are very big, very messy, and VERY determined. Once you have one, you may never be rid of it.

They do have their virtues. In addition to feeding silk moths, if one had any silkworms, they fruit copiously (the "messy" part of the description above). The virtuous aspect of this is that they fruit at the same time as raspberries. If I had a big yard with a plot of raspberries, I would surely plant a mulberry, as they draw the birds away from the raspberries. Mulberries, alas, have very little taste. They are bigger than raspberries, and are a lovely dark purple color, but full of seeds and basically tasteless. You knew that anything as easy to grow as a mulberry couldn't possibly have delicious fruit.

They do have cool leaves. Lobed and with fancy edges. One side of a leaf is often much larger than the other. This leaf is more symmetrical than many.