The Volunteer

We get a good many volunteer plants in our garden, mostly wildflower or weeds. (If I like the plant and the flower, it's a wildflower and left to grow. If I don't like it, it's a weed and I will pull it.).

All summer there has been a plant growing in a flowerbed right next to my native spice bush. It's been left because it appeared to be a nice bush, though very young. Today, I actually thought about cutting it down but decided that I should at least find out what it is. So, I snipped a nice piece of it and went to the internet. I found all kinds of native plants, but nothing that looked quite like this one. Then there was the fact that I wasn't sure if it was a woody perennial or shrub or tree. It looked like a multi-trunked tree but at just a summer old, it was hard to tell.

So I took my sample, bagged it and took it to the Lancaster Environmental Association at the County Park. They took one look at it and told me it was a mulberry tree http://www.crfg.org/pubs/ff/mulberry.html. They weren't sure if it is a red or a white at this time, but would be able to tell if it was a little older. They also told me that the fruit is really quite eatable though I would have to fight the birds for it and that's how they often got planted; the birds. I had an entire family of Orioles in the yard this year. They did warn me that we should make sure the berries are totally ripe before harvesting them.

I'm thinking I will replant this tree to a more suitable area. It is right next to the spice bush and we were told that should we have to replant one, replant the mulberry. Besides, the mulberry is younger and smaller.