I have noticed an explosion in American Elderberry interest. Groups of tens of thousands are forming on social media, lots of recipes and false informations about cures though. Wines/Tonics/Elixers/Syrups/Juices.
A true explosion in the ‘health’ sections of grocery stores and pharmacies. I just noticed yesterday that there is new elderberry tea in my tea section. I think last year sales topped $300M and it was the hottest herbal medicine.
I remember as a child the ‘hippies’ made alot of elderberry wine… but since then i havent really heard much of it until the past year or so.
I am going to grow ALOT of it myself next year. Its bombproof to propagate and fruits grow on primocanes. I have a plot of land that is unusable to me. It stays soggy year round. Seems that is Elderberry haven.
The best statement i have read about it is ‘One of the best bird attracting plants in all of North America’.
I think they are great for pollinators too- Each head has thousands and thousands of flowers…
Native Americans used just about every part of the plant. The stems for flutes, they used the bark, the leaves, the flowers and the berries for medicine.
I halfway expect with the boom of interest to see them start showing up in box stores… which i think would be a good thing.
Cultivation seems to be one of the simplest. They seem to thrive with other weeds and grasses, so no mowing is needed. They do best when cut to the ground every fall/winter.
The named cultivars are basically wild seedlings found thru the US that showed better traits such as bigger berries, or bigger clusters of berries.
Seems like a wonderful addition to my property…even though its a fad and also a trend.
I think it became popular two years ago during the height of Covid because of its supposed immunity benefits. A lot of EB supplements became scarce because of demand.
I haven’t grown it, but my wife’s cousins, who live about an hour from us did. Don’t know if they still grow it, but they did give us some elderberry jelly or jam a few years ago. It was okay, but I can’t remember much about it.
I actually just got my Indiana Berry catalog for this year, and they are selling five different varieties of it if you’re interested.
How do you plan to use them? I was thinking of planting some, cause they’re pretty and easy to grow
But I read that they’re poisonous if you eat them raw, and I have small kids at home who I don’t trust to not eat the delicious looking berries growing in their yard right off the bush.
I think im up to 20 varieties as of right now. I think i have every known variety except for one or two. I am going to see what works best here where i live then propagate after that.
We and our cousin friends (east of us) are just west of the Huntington area, and their plants seem to grow very well where they are at, which is in a very secluded north-south holler. We are on a east facing hillside, but haven’t tried to grow them.
Valid point. However the flowerheads and fruits are at around 10-20ft and sometimes beyond that. There are varieties that the heads do not droop down as much as others… so unless your kids have ladders or stilts there is hope. Im learning myself so perhaps not the best for small kids.
I have elderberries on my property, I think they were spread there by the birds - so they’re probably not an improved variety. I cut them down a few times when we first moved in before I realized what they were. Now I tried to make jelly out of them every year.
Probably the two biggest barriers to elderberry popularity are the taste - which is not sweet - but mainly the harvesting. Harvesting is pretty labor-intensive. The berries are tiny, so you have to strip them off the stems (the stems are much more poisonous than ripe berries from what I understand). Just getting the berries off the stems is fairly labor intensive, even with the freezing trick.
Once you have the berries off the stems, the advice you’ll most often find on the web is to boil them and then strain them through cheesecloth. I would advise against that, as elderberries when processed that way seem to leave a sticky green substance stuck to the surfaces of stuff. Get yourself a Weston tomato press or something similar. Press the juice out cold, THEN cook them. This seems to avoid the green residue in my experience. I’m guessing it must have something to do with boiling the skins and/or seeds. With a press, the seeds and skins never get boiled.
Despite the lack of sweetness which is a strike against them, the ease of growing is a definite plus. No diseases I’m aware of. Birds are a pest, but it seems like you can get a decent crop anyway, even better maybe if you can net them. But they’re kind of big for netting.
Definitely a trend! Lots of research is coming from the University of Missouri who received a $5 million grant to research them. At this time most of the Elderberry products sold in the US are made from European Elders which makes no sense. Lots of new plantings of American Elders of 1-10 acres all over the country.
We are testing and selling 7 varieties of Elders from our licensed nursery in NC. So far they have grown like weeds with very few pest problems. It’s the only thing we have have ever grown where you can stick an unrooted cutting in the ground and get a plant the first year and fruit the second year.
I gave into the hype and ordered some cuttings a couple months ago. Apparently I can just pop them directly in the ground and they will grow. I ordered “Bob Gordon” and “Pocahontas” from River Hills Harvest. I’m not sure they will fruit this first year but I’d love to get a small bit to make some jam with. I should probably prune any off so they divert their energy to growing.
The innerwebs, social media, trading, and i have bought from online nurseries. I am only missing a couple of varieties… i tend to ‘collect’ things… i will likely offer cuttings etc once im established. But that is a little ways down the road.
I have just about every american and euro variety. Some are just ornamental though…like the Black Elders.
Im learning myself…but i think the theory of cultivation is this-
American Elder- If you cut to the ground you will get the most vigorous and largest heads and berries… If you do not you will get smaller heads and berries on floricanes. In nature i think they fruit and flower on primocanes and floricanes? But to get the maximum cut all floricanes to the ground.
Euro- I think alot of them are floricane fruiting…so you cant do it that way.
Also dont forget cross pollination…or pollination partners… having just one variety or varieties that dont pollinate each other well makes smaller heads and berries.
Some of the named varieties are prone to fungal problems… I tried york and ranch here in my z7a TN location… flowered and fruited some first year… then got the funk… and never recovered despite being pruned back to the ground. Yanked them last fall… no blooms or fruit for 2 years at that point.
I have lots of wild nearby… may transplant or propigate some of those for my next try.
The berries on ranch and york were large… 2x to 3x that of wild berries… which made me wonder if they would be as potent.
I’ve grown them for 4 or 5 years, propagated them, traded cuttings and enjoyed the flowers as much as the fruit. The berries are a pain to process, although there are a variety of techniques you can try to make it easier. The flowers take effort as well since you really don’t want much if any stem in what you use. Elderflower cordials and syrups (to add to seltzer or just water) are great. And if you plant them near where you spend time you can enjoy a really lovely smell from the blooms as well as all the bird activity when the birds hit the fruit. Mine are right beside our screened-in porch.
They are also very easy to protect. I just put a 5-gallon “paint strainer” bag over the heads of berries and zip tie it around the stem. Just cut the entire head off when they’re done… then the real work begins. We protect about 1/2 and let the birds have the others, although the birds don’t seem to make them their top choice like they would blueberries, blackberries and mulberries. The berries we mostly use for jelly and for syrup.
You can absolutely just cut them to the ground each year and they’ll be back at 10 plus feet tall by Fall. I tend to prune mine at one or 2 feet depending on the structure, since cutting to the ground can make them sucker out further and I’d prefer they not spread too much.
I do think there is some research that has shown a reduced likelihood of getting a cold or flu if you are taking a fairly concentrated syrup and a faster recovery if you do get something. My wife swears by it.
Who knows if there is any effect with Covid, though. And the online groups are just about bonkers with how much they suggest it is a cure-all and how powerful it supposedly is for just about every ailment you can imagine.
They are bombproof and they grow from being evergreen in Florida to up in Maine, so they are pretty amazing plants and the American ones are native, depending on where you are. I recommend them to everyone as a great plant to add, particularly since you can have them in partial shade and still get fruit.
I have York, Nova and a seedling I selected from a group I got from the Missouri conservation commission that is actually just as good as the two named cultivars.
By the way, here is a short video on how I prune them.
And one on how easy it is to start them as cuttings, including how forgiving they are when you forget about them.
You can actually just use a cutting with a single pair of buds, even though I suggest two pairs with one pair above and one below the soil. If you just have a pair of buds it is best to have them at the lower side of the cutting that goes in the soil, since those will grow up and out of the soil and the new wood is where they are more likely to root. I’ve rooted cuttings with “blind” wood only below the soil, but it is slower and I did have a few that didn’t make it roots in time to support the top buds that started growing first.
I gave into the hype and ordered some cuttings a couple months ago. Apparently I can just pop them directly in the ground and they will grow. I ordered “Bob Gordon” and “Pocahontas” from River Hills Harvest. I’m not sure they will fruit this first year but I’d love to get a small bit to make some jam with. I should probably prune any off so they divert their energy to growing.
