I discovered Sassafras and Mulberry bushes growing wild...

[PunkinPeep]

on my property. Should i be happy about that? I've heard they both have medicinal properties.

I'm a total gardening newbie, but I'm thinking about cultivating some - as they usually get mowed down like weeds.

Any and all advice is welcome! :tools

 

[injunjoe]

on my property. Should i be happy about that? I've heard they both have medicinal properties.

I'm a total gardening newbie, but I'm thinking about cultivating some - as they usually get mowed down like weeds.

Any and all advice is welcome! :tools

Welcome to TEG.
I know nothing about Sassafras, except I like the way it rolls off my tongue! Sassafras, Sassafras yes I love to say that one!

Mulberry can mean a few different types of trees. Not knowing were you are, or seeing the tree it could be good or invasive/ bad!

Joe

 

[PunkinPeep]

on my property. Should i be happy about that? I've heard they both have medicinal properties.

I'm a total gardening newbie, but I'm thinking about cultivating some - as they usually get mowed down like weeds.

Any and all advice is welcome! :tools

Welcome to TEG.
I know nothing about Sassafras, except I like the way it rolls off my tongue! Sassafras, Sassafras yes I love to say that one!

Mulberry can mean a few different types of trees. Not knowing were you are, or seeing the tree it could be good or invasive/ bad!

Joe

I live in East Texas in a mesic forest area....or that's what i read on the Stephen F Austin botany website. I assumed that any species of mulberry could be cultivated for the berries; is that not true?

 

[Rosalind]

Mulberry: It depends. Do you like mulberries? Do you have chickens that free-range and will poop purple all over your car? Is the mulberry located someplace where bushels of raining purple goo will be a concern, such as hanging over a patio?

Ours is in the backyard, in the middle of a grassy area where the songbirds and turkeys catch most of the dropped fruit, so it's not really an issue. But our neighbor used to have six of them hanging right over his patio. Every Labor Day, his patio was a two-inch-deep carpet of mush, which attracted flies galore when the fruit rotted because he couldn't keep up with shoveling. He made a point of selling that house in the spring.

Sassafras: Too much sassafras tea will apparently cause liver damage, but my impression was that "too much" meant, a few glasses per day for a couple of decades. I don't think a pot of sassafras tea or a glass of real homemade root beer on a weekend would be a problem, though, unless you've got pre-existing liver problems. The supposed medicinal purposes for which it has been used (skin problems, arthritis) are, shall we say, not proven by clinical trial. At least, no amount of sassafras tea ever did a darn thing for me.

 

[injunjoe]

Well these are good trees here.

http://www.wildmanstevebrill.com/Plants.Folder/Mulberries.html

These will cause trouble for ever!

http://www.google.com/imgres?imgurl...mage_result&resnum=4&ct=image&ved=0CBkQ9QEwAw

Joe

Oh and the second one has never produced a berry around here.

 

[HiDelight]

birds love mullberries I say keep them

my chickens leap into the air to eat them when I let them in the yard it is hysterical to watch ..I say keep them for entertainment if you are not a big mullberry eater

but dried mulberries are great if you want to make some wonderful Middle Eastern dishes!

they taste great in rice with fresh mint and butter

I say keep the mulberries ...I know nothing about Sassafras except as a flavoring that I enjoy very much

 

[PunkinPeep]

Thanks for all your responses!

It turns out i have the paper mulberry that injunjoe posted a link to. So i will have to decide if i want to propogate it. Supposedly, it does make a berry, and i do have chickens who i would like to feed from my land as much as possible, so i might try encouraging one to grow near my chicken coop so the branches will drape over the run, and they can enjoy the bounty if it ever gets big enough to make berries.

Thank you very much for the defining links on the two different kinds.

 

[injunjoe]

If that is the case then this link will clear up what I am saying.
http://aquat1.ifas.ufl.edu/node/74

This is one quote from that link;
" Preventative:
Do not plant paper mulberry. Educate homeowners and others on its invasive nature so it is not planted in landscapes. "

I have thick skin, Poison Oak don't bother me but the leaves of this tree make me itch like crazy!

You will fight this thing and it's roots for the rest of time!

Joe

 

[PunkinPeep]

If that is the case then this link will clear up what I am saying.
http://aquat1.ifas.ufl.edu/node/74

This is one quote from that link;
" Preventative:
Do not plant paper mulberry. Educate homeowners and others on its invasive nature so it is not planted in landscapes. "

I have thick skin, Poison Oak don't bother me but the leaves of this tree make me itch like crazy!

You will fight this thing and it's roots for the rest of time!

Joe

Thank you, Joe. I certainly feel warned.

I am curious. Does it grow large where you are?

I read the article, and its pattern here does not seem invasive at all, perhaps because our land is so wet, and there is an abundance of moisture for as many plants as we can cram in. That's just my guess. I haven't really seen it in thicket form - just tall weeds that started to get my attention when i once confused the leaf with a fig leaf. I was hopeful that i had fig trees growing here, but i was wrong.

But i intend to remedy that very soon.

 

[journey11]

One of the benefits of mulberry is that birds love it and will usually gorge themselves and leave your berries, cherries, etc alone. They are messy, so you probably don't want them too close to your house, but they'd be great on the back 40. You can eat them too, although they are not really that popular as an edible.

I love sassafras..it is everywhere around here. I think it has pretty fall foliage. I love a cup of sassafras tea in the winter (harvest roots from late fall to early spring) and I love the smell of a pot of roots boiling on the stove. It is said to be carcinogenic in mass quantities, but this research was done by subjecting mice to highly concentrated doses over a long period of time. (Most things out of moderation can be toxic.) That's why they don't make rootbeer out of real sassafras root anymore. A cup of tea every so often is not going to hurt you though, and oldtimers believed it to be a "blood purifier" or liver tonic.

ETA: Oh, and