Cold-Hardy Mulberry Varieties for Zone 4 & 5

A mulberry is the easiest fruit tree most people have never planted: no spray, no pruning to speak of, no pollination partner, and a harvest that runs for six weeks or more instead of a fortnight. The catch is that seedling and roadside trees are wildly variable, and a named variety is the difference between a fruit worth eating and a mess on the driveway. The named hybrids of the native red mulberry and the Asian white mulberry are where the hardiness and the flavour meet.

These 5 are the cold-climate selections. Illinois Everbearing is the standard, hardy to about minus 20 degrees Fahrenheit and fruiting from July into September; Oscar is rated colder still. Kokuso, a Korean white-mulberry selection, ripens earliest, in June, and stains the least. Gerardi Dwarf and Dwarf Everbearing stay small enough to net against birds, which matters because birds find a mulberry before you do. Plant any of them well away from paths and parking. Every variety is self-fertile. Sorted by hardiness, coldest first.