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CANNAS!



MULBERRIES!

what exactly is a mulberry? All around the mulberry bush the monkey chased the weasel. Are you the monkey?

I have canna's coming up too Thorny!

A Mulberry is a long skinny black berry that looks like a stretched out Blackberry. They are sweet, nutritious, and DELICIOUS! I love to eat them but Mockingbirds, Robins, and ESPECIALLY, Cedar Waxwings like them even more than I do, so I never get to eat any. No matter. If the Waxwings come to my yard for them, they can have them all.

Mulberries grow on either trees or bushes. If you DON'T trim the plant it stays low to the ground and spreads out, Hence a Mulberry "BUSH". Careful pruning causes the plant to grow UP and form a tree that has THICK foliage and MASSIVE amounts of berries! They provide great shade and food for animals AND humans. Birds love to nest in then and the provide good protection from predators. AND, they grow FAST.

All-in-all, they are a GREAT tree/bush to have in your yard. I have Two Mulberry "TREES" an two Mulberry "BUSHES" in my yard.

Mulberries also leave a deep purple stain if you walk in the fallen fruit and then tromp it into the house. And they leave a thick layer of fallen fruit on the golf cart roofs when you park them under the trees. And then of course there are volunteer mulberries babies to deal with.
That being said. I love mulberry trees. And if the fruit sounds like a problem you can go fruitless.

Thorn, when you get the fruit please post a picture. I've never seen it that i know of.

Here is a pic I took last year of a Cedar Waxwing in my BIG Mulberry tree with a half-ripe berry in its mouth. Although it is a POOR quality, you can see some of the green berries in clusters on the branches around it. This picture was taken on May 18th.


CEDAR WAXWING WITH MULBERRY


and here is a picture I took of a half-ripe Mulberry with other GREEN berries I took in May, 2006. I can never get ripe Mulberries because the Waxwings prefer them HALF-Ripe and eat ALL the berries before they ripen. These are from one of my Mulberry BUSHES.

MULBERRIES

I have cannas too! But from seed xP How I wish cannas were hardy here

My Cannas spread like wildfire around here. I don't even take them up in Winter. Each spring 3 - 5 times as many as the year before sprout and grow. They grow from seed or rhizome but seed is difficult to germinate. I stick to rhizome.