What ate my mulberry trees?

Well, this really has been a hard year in the garden so far. First the the heat and wind dried everything out faster than I could replenish the water. Next came the Great Bunny Apocalypse where hordes of the fuzz balls tore up almost everything in sight. My blackberries decided they did not want to live anymore and just keeled over. Now something ate the crap out of my 2 3' Mulberry Tree saplings. All the leaves and some of the smaller branches are just gone...poof! The trees had leaves when we went to work, then in the 10 hours, we were gone, naked trees. Now the trees look like naked sticks in their pots. I have ruled out javalina or deer. No tracks, or other sign that it was them, plus deer do not come into the city. Javalinas would leave signs plus the flower beds were not touched. There is a bunch of rock squirrels near by, but there was no enough damage to have been those guys. No bugs that I can see. Plus it happened during the day. Anyone have any ideas? Oh, I'm in Tucson, AZ

Well, I have no clue about the ecology of your region but none the less I'm willing to take a crap shot at this mystery and suggest: locusts

Regards,
Dominik

Squirrels. They do it all the time here. My dad had one squirrel destroy 7 mulberry saplings in one day.

They did the same thing to my mango and avocado saplings

Mulberry makes great forage for all sorts of critters! Very high protein (15-35%)!

sounds like a stray goat to me

Dominik Riva wrote:Well, I have no clue about the ecology of your region but none the less I'm willing to take a crap shot at this mystery and suggest: locusts

Regards,
Dominik

Hi Dominik,

Sweden, huh? I live in Tucson, Arizona. It is Zone 9A and we are a considered a high desert.

I believe it may have been grasshoppers. We had a ferocious problem here is Soutwest Texas this year. They destroyed about 10 8' Mulberry Trees in a few days here. Leaves and small branches were gone. Even ate some of the bark off bigger limbs.

,Travis Krause
parkercreekranch.com

i've seen my 3 greyhounds chewing mulberry leaves like goats... any dogs there?

The culprits are/were squirrels. So far three have met an untimely end. One fell in a half full rain barrel, another got whacked by a car in front of our house and the third was presented to us as a prize by our Golden Retriever. There is a fourth still out there. I surrounded the Mulberry saplings with tomato cages and fine chicken wire. This seems to be keeping the marauders at bay. The little trees are popping new leaves, so hopefully things will work out. Now if I can keep my wife from feeding the last squirrel who she believes must be lonely with his sibling gone.