My parents have an English mulberry (Very tasty mulberries good for fresh eating and jam but stain your hands). The tree is pretty old probably > 40 years so I can't give you any information on how quickly it grew or how old it was before first fruiting.

Their ave temp range is 7-17 in July and 19-29 in Jan with about 7 days per year over 40 and about 4 days a year with min under 2 (almost never 0) ie similar temps to Perth but they have a lot less rain than Perth (Perhaps because of a lack of water or the poor shallow soil and a lack of fertiliser the tree was a managable height (~3m) but quite sprawly which made picking a lot easier.

I'd be tempted to keep the English black for two reasons:
1) My uncle, who lived in a colder wetter place than my parents, had a white and another one not sure what type and they weren't nearly as tasty as ours.
2) Whenever our tree got a bit of extra water and we didn't have a string of stinking hot weather (Causes fruit and flowers to be cooked) we got a lot of fruit and the problem was picking it. It takes a long time. If you have two trees the same, ripe at the same time then you may find it hard to pick all of the fruit. A caveat to this is that even if you have two different mulberries they may still ripen at the same time.

One good thing about my parents mulberry tree compared to one that was on rental property I lived at in South Perth (not an English one and less flavoursome) was location. My parents tree was tucked away in the back corner of the yard and you only went there to pick mulberries. Whereas, the South Perth one was next to the back door so it was much easier to walk mulberries onto the carpet.

Dee jay - thanks very much. We have smartly, not, planted our black english in the front. We hoped to keep it at about 3 m. The old neighbour over the road has a lovely white which he keeps pruned at 3 m, and which must be at least 30 yrs old. It fruits abundantly.

I will have to see if the black english tolerates Perth summers. I am not sure if it will. Oh well, wait and see I spose.

Keep trying with the black. I may have been lucky but I bought a seedling black at the flea markets about 3-4 years ago and it has never stopped growing and has had fruit from its 1st season. When I planted it, it was only 30 cm high but is now over 3m h and wide. I never feed or water it, only gets rain and not much of that during the drought. At the moment it is nearly back in full leaf and is covered in flower and fruit (just starting to colour). Last year we had more than enough mulberries and left the fruit at the top for the birds. I have a photo of my 4yr old (then 3), naked with purple stains totally over her stomach, legs, arms and face - fun to clean up.

Here, near Gympie, our summer temps average 35C, often hotter and regular frosts in winter.

Don't give up.

Hi agnes

My family live in Balcatta and they have had a black mulberry tree for at least 30 years..if I remember it did start growing slowly, which means that it establishes its root system first. It it on the west side of the house and so protected from the drying easterlies.

hope this helps

Helen

Helen and Goldhills - thanks so much. I will see how it goes. But geez, the white mulberry is going crazy. Should I pick the fruit off and let it concentrate on its root system?

I would take some of the fruit off Agnes, I left some fruit on my black mulberry last year, just so I could have a taste. However, the priority is getting the root system established.

regards

helen

Hello
I am attempting to grow mulberry trees from cutting obtained from a white mulberry tree. I live in South Perth and study in Joondalup. Does anyone know of a large mulberry tree I could get some leaves from? Your help is appreciated thanks