I can only relate to my experience. My trees come from cold storage in dormancy. I plant them into moist soil when the weather is about 50 F. average. They start to show new growth in a couple of weeks as the weather warms.

You need to keep the grass down by multching, cutting or spraying. Use Simazine or Roundup, but don' t get the Roundup on the trees or they' ll die. Some people use a stove pipe to put over the tree and then spray around.

Soap spray or deer repelant may help keep the deer away if they show signs of nibbling. The only other thing that I' d worry about is mouse and vole damage to the trunks of the plum and mulberries. You can paint them with a latex paint-Thiram mixture or install plastic tree guards.

Did you plant mulberries because the deer eat them in your area? Most people don' t know how well they work to draw deer in the spring and summer.

Dan O.