growing mulberry tree indoors?

I'm trying to grow a mulberry tree inside my house. It was growing well but has now stopped. Could the reason it has stopped producing leaves be down to the pot size I have it in? Should it grow bigger the larger the pot or should it not matter as long as I feed it enough fertiliser? I've been giving it fertiliser once a week.

 

My mulberry grows outdoors in the garden. It is deciduous and so doesn't grow at all during the winter. I've not grown a mulberry indoors, but I would assume that it would also like a rest in the winter. I suggest you stop feeding it as too much chemical fertiliser will poison a plant and too much natural fertiliser, warmth and water at this time of year could lead to forced soft growth that you don't want. Let it rest and see what happens in the spring when you should put it outside in its pot to harden up a bit.

If you keep it in a very small pot it will become stunted like a bonsai. So a bigger pot would give you a bigger tree, but really it needs to go into the garden to develope full size.

 

Thanks for the advice. I was trying to get it producing leaves all year round because I have a reptile and I want to have silkworms all the time that I can feed it (silkworms eat mulberry leaves). Looks like growing it indoors isn't going to work.

 

um now I recolect that you only get the silk worms on one of the mulberries, I think there is a black and white one. there is a massive one accross the road from me, probably nearly 100 years old, it was Imported for the silk worm, but they bought the wrong tree.

 

Does your reptile only eat silkworms? can't you feed it waxworms(wax moth caterpillars) or crickets which are available all the year round or is it that specialised in diet, what reptile do you have?

 

I think we mostly grow the black mulberry in the UK and I THINK its the white thats needed for silkworms.
Either way, I dont think they will grow sucsessfully indoors and anyway if you keep reducing the foliage on a small pot grown plant it will probably die, so I would guess the idea is doomed to failure.

 

Yes - Pete is correct. White mulberry is from China and is the one for silkworms. It can grow outdoors in warmer places in Britain and was often grown in city and town gardens for the silk weavers. Black mulberry is the hardier tree and the much more common one now found in Britain. Better buy some commercial reptile food I guess