by Peter Coles

As it was the Spring equinox yesterday (21 March) I decided to take a trip out to the Royal Botanical Gardens at Kew to see how its mulberry trees are doing.  I'd heard reports that a couple of the fine trees I'd seen and photographed back in 2018 (see article here) had been felled because of disease, but I wanted to see for myself.

Morus nigra at Kew in 2020

Following my footsteps of four years ago, walking diagonally left out of Victoria Gate, I was soon confronted by metal fences and JCB diggers – workmen were landscaping a new path amongst the Catalpas.  Sure enough, no sign of the Morus nigra. When I enquired of a member of staff, it seems that the mulberry was felled last year, as it had become diseased.  I have no further details at present, but will follow up and try to find out exactly what happened.  Black mulberries are fairly resistant to disease and pests as a rule, but as the tree was close to a path and already leaning, it could porentially have posed a risk to the public.

The  old  propped Black mulberry has gone, and not sure exactly where it had been ...

 
It was around here somewehere...

A little further on, at a 4-way junction of paths, though, there is still a small grove of mulberries, including a Morus cathayana and species of the related Broussonetia genus (B. papyrifera - Paper mulberry - and B. kazinoki). These all seem to be doing OK, though they are a lot smaller than I recall from my last visit, albeit much later in the year when they were in leaf.

Morus nigra in the Mulberry grove at Kew

Red mulberry

The red mulbrry (Morus rubra) of my 2020 visit is also no more, having been removed and replaced by a sapling, still supported by a stake and surrounded by  protective netting to keep it from browsing animals. The leaf buds were just about to open, but it has already had some damage to one of the stems.  Red mullberries struggle outside their native North America and William Jackson Bean, celebrated plantsman and curator  at Kew in the 1920s, said they never seem to do well here.

Trying again to grow a Red mulberry (Morus rubra) at Kew

Meanwhile...

The stars of the show on my Springtime walk, though were, of course, the cherries, in full 'Sakura' blossom. As visitor after visitor posed under the glorious Prunus 'shirotae' a few metres away, I was unashamedly ignoring them, scrambling in the grass trying to capture the dimutive mulberries, yet to claim their own moment of glory later in the year.  The flowers and fruit of the Broussonetia papyrifera are particularly worth seeing.

'Sakura' blossom of Prunus 'Shirotae'.

All photos (c) Peter Coles