More musing on mini mulberries, and other novelties
21.08.2023 - 12:04
/ theunconventionalgardener.com
/ Emma Doughty
We’ve all been there. We’ve all read the marketing blurb for a shiny new plant variety, and decided that we had to have it. We may have been good, and waited for a few days, to be sure that we really had to have it, but we’ve all paid money for brand new plant varieties for the garden. And then we find out that they don’t quite live up to the hype. You don’t hear about ‘early adopters’ outside of the tech world, really, but that’s exactly what we are, and a certain amount of disappointment is inevitable.
This year there was a big splash about a new dwarf mulberry – Charlotte Russe. It wasn’t just that it’s a much smaller tree than traditional mulberries, and so will grow in smaller gardens, and be happy in a pot. It was also that it is a prolific fruiter, fruiting young and fruiting often, so a plant bought this spring would crop this summer. I’ve never tasted mulberries, and my existing mulberry tree is young and has yet to flower and fruit, and so I took the plunge and ordered myself a Charlotte Russe.
And it arrived, and it was tiny and it was beautiful. I gave it plenty of TLC indoors, and it started to flower. The flowers are weird and wonderful things, and when the fruits started to form I was all giddy with excitement. I decided it was time to harden it off outdoors, and… disaster struck. It started to lose all its leaves and I thought it was dying. I brought it back inside for more TLC, but that didn’t help.
I sent pictures of my sad plant to the retailer, and I received a reply that I imagine came from some crochety old bloke in the horticultural team who doesn’t like doing customer service:
I can see that the plant is laden with fruit clusters. Please pick them all off. If you have not potted up the plant then I
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