Is a white mulberry a good tree to plant in Indiana?
Think hard about it — white mulberry is on the hazard list in central Indiana. White mulberry is one of the 44 species named in Indiana's Terrestrial Plant Rule (312 IAC 18-3-25), making it illegal to sell, gift, barter, transport, or introduce anywhere in the state. It is abundant across central Indiana in fencerows, alleys, and neglected lot edges, and it hybridizes with the native red mulberry (Morus rubra) — red mulberry itself is not regulated, but most volunteer yard mulberries here are white mulberry or a white-by-red hybrid.
What you'd be signing up to clean up
Fruit is the whole story — from late May into July a fruiting mulberry drops soft purple berries that stain concrete drives, walks, patios, cars, and pets, and birds spread those stains onto everything nearby. After the fruit comes constant small twig litter, plus every seedling that germinates in the beds and lawn that season, which is another mulberry.
Where to keep it away from
Shallow, wide, and opportunistic — mulberry roots surface in lawns and press against garage slabs, walks, and light retaining walls, and they are routinely found in the seam where a seedling germinated between a foundation and a driveway. The operational point is that felling it does not kill it: stump and roots resprout hard, so a mulberry removal has to include stump grinding or a cut-stump herbicide treatment or the customer has a thicket in two years.
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