Meet Morry

Perhaps I need to rename my blog to 'Gardener on a Budget,' or 'The Bargain Hunter,' or maybe just 'The Cheapskate.'

Today I picked up a lovely little grafted mulberry (Morus alba 'Pendula') for the bargain basement price of $99, down from $150. It's grafted at about 160cm or so (about 5') I think, so it's also much cheaper than the $225-295 price I was staring down the barrel at for a taller grafted standard (180cm, or 6') that I was considering for my green-cubby. 

Of course, today I was 'just looking' in the nursery and hadn't planned on getting anything, but this tree was calling my name ('Katie, Katie, buy me, buy me! Look how straight I am, and look how wide I am at the top compared to the others, and I'm on sale...') so my quick browse became a shop of 1 x tree, 1 x bag cow manure, 1 x bucket Seamungus, 8 x long stakes (two to keep my tree straight, and six to use to form a guiding boundary for the cubby). Yep, a bargain ;) 

I think I'll call him 'Morry.' 

More on my idea

So, this idea, sprung upon while watching Miss 4 playing in the fallen leaves of the beautiful Japanese weeping cherry trees in the Mt a Lofty Botanic Gardens, is to plant a weeping grafted standard tree in the backyard which will eventually grow into a living cubby house for the kidlets. 

I've been researching all sorts of options, and talking to people in a couple of specialist tree nurseries around Adelaide. A weeping cherry would have been perfect, except I'm told they are very slow growing (damn) and would probably hate my hot-spot hilltop (double damn). Most other options (eg weeping crabapple, weeping apple, Japanese maple etc) would also be too slow, or too narrow etc etc. I have reluctantly settled on a weeping (grafted) mulberry. My reservations are two-fold: Firstly, I'm just in the process of taking out the black mulberry I planted three years ago because the fruit was rubbish and not at all like the mulberries I remember, and because the yard has evolved and there is no longer room for such a potentially large tree (especially one with tasteless fruit), and secondly I'm a little concerned that this eventual cubby will look like the Tombliboos house from that kids' TV show Miss 4 insists on subjecting us to every evening. 

(Image from http://exigenomicon.typepad.com/exigenomicon/2012/01/what-i-think-about-during-in-the-night-garden-.html) 

Image from http://ozmummy.blogspot.com.au/2011/03/in-mulberry-tree.html)

Mulberry trees do tick quite a few of the required boxes: they are comparatively fast growing, suitable for our dry climate, and have edible fruit (yes, even the white mulberry I plan on planting... fingers crossed). 

So worth a punt, I think. And I wish I'd thought of it three years ago when I first planted that mulberry.