Hi folks,

I would appreciate some advice on pruning my hopefully-fruiting mulberry. This falls into the question of "late is hopefully better than never," since I've pruned it for a couple years already based on brief and generic written advice probably intended for grafted trees and this is a seedling.

This is a three year old volunteer mulberry tree planted by a bird. My landlady and Google Image Search say it's a mulberry, anyway; I know nothing about them. It is approx. 15' tall, but has not flowered yet so I don't know its sex(es). I hope for fruit, but if not, it will at least be a nice shade tree.

The branches that touch the bottom of the image are the second year branches that come right off the trunk. You can see this year's growth in the main part of the image.

The first year (before I even knew I was keeping it) the frost sort of pruned it for me. The second year it branched out and in the winter I cut each second year branch down to half the length it grew to. In hindsight this was probably too far up, since it left the tree about 10' in height and with this year's growth the tree seems very "leggy."

This year, it developed these long straight branches at the very tip of each of the second year branches.

How should I prune the tree this winter? Should I just remove branches that are too close to each other or should I tip off each third year branch? How long should I leave this year's branches?

Will how I prune it affect flowering/fruiting (if it turns out it can fruit)?

Thanks very much! :)