Survives zone 7 through 9
Harvest calendar
Best planted in early spring after your last frost, or in fall before the ground freezes, depending on your climate.
Small sweet-tart dark mulberries over a long season; a true patio mulberry.
- Hardiness
- Zone 7–9
- Habit
- Tree
- Edible part
- Fruit
- Ripens
- Summer–autumn (long, everbearing)
- Mature size
- Dwarf/compact 1–1.5 m — EXCELLENT for containers and balconies
- Light
- Full sun to partial
- Soil pH
- 6.0–7.5 (lime-tolerant)
- Environment
- Temperate
- Native range
- Kew and GBIF both treat Morus rotundiloba as a synonym of Morus indica, the mulberry of the Indian subcontinent and mainland South-East Asia; the plants sold under the rotundiloba name trace to Thailand. 'Mojo Berry' is a dwarf selection bred by Hajime Matsunaga in Japan — registered as Morus 'Matsunaga', sold earlier as 'BonBonBerry' and 'Charlotte Russe', and awarded RHS Chelsea Flower Show Plant of the Year in 2017 — so it is a garden cultivar rather than a wild-collected form.
- Status
- Cultivated
- Years to fruit
- 1–2 yrs
- Growth speed
- Fast to first fruit — can flower and fruit in its first year, even in a nursery pot — but the plant itself stays compact and slow-growing in overall stature.
- Spacing
- 120 cm (47 in) apart — about 1.4 m² (16 sq ft) per plant
- Leaf shape
- Rounded and often shallowly lobed leaves — the cultivar/species epithet 'rotundiloba' reflects this round-lobed leaf shape — smaller overall than the leaves of standard mulberry trees, consistent with its dwarf form.
- Root system
- Stays proportionally compact to match its dwarf above-ground scale, which is what makes it suited to long-term container culture without becoming pot-bound as quickly as a full-size mulberry.
- Fruit description
- Small blackberry-like fruit produced continuously over an unusually long season, coloring from ruby-red to glossy black as it ripens; sweet-tart and juicy, though individually smaller than the fruit of standard mulberry trees.
- Propagation
- Propagated commercially by cuttings, grown on its own roots to keep the compact habit and fruit quality true to type; being self-fertile, seedlings can also fruit, but named stock is cutting-grown.
- Pollination
- Self-fertile/parthenocarpic
The edible parts listed above are a starting point, not a field guide. Identify a plant with certainty — ideally against a local authority — before eating any part of it, and read the full disclaimer. Spotted something wrong? Report it.
Growing guide
Fertilizing. A fertile, well-drained soil enriched with compost at planting, plus a light annual feed, supports its unusually long fruiting season on a small frame. Container plants especially need regular feeding through the growing season, since their limited root volume can't draw on much reserve.
How it spreads. Naturally compact and non-spreading — bred specifically for a dense, restrained dwarf habit (roughly 1–1.5m), unlike the full-size single-trunked trees of the other mulberry species; well suited to pots and small gardens without the containment full-size mulberries need.
Growing tips. Sets fruit even in small nursery pots and needs no winter chilling hours to crop, making it more adaptable to mild climates than a straightforward zone rating suggests; RHS rates it hardy to about -15°C (H5) in the ground. Give full sun for the best flavor and only light winter pruning to remove dead or damaged wood — like all mulberries it bleeds sap if cut while in growth.
Grow journal
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