An extra heart for your enthusiasm.
2 Likes
i have 2 mature elders and ive been finding seedlings popping up all over the yard this spring. i didnt think the birds ate them but i guess i was wrong. the way they grow in even the worst soil makes them almost too easy to spread. i think black elder will become common in n. Maine in the very near future. 
ive only seen 1 in the wild here and it was 50mi. east of here. it makes no sense to me what nurseries charge for these considering you can stick cuttings anywhere and you will have a plant with near 100% certantiy.
3 Likes
I always tell people that if they need it to stay in a more confined space to go with European black elderberry cause the new canes come up from the same spot, but if they have space for a wider planting they can go with American black elderberry which will produce new canes from spreading rhizomes. Sometimes they already have white rhizomes circling the pot to use for show and tell.
3 Likes
i wish i had seen that info before planting johns. it throws suckers about 6ft. from the plant. i spent 20 min. yesterday plucking about 20 suckers out of my walking onion patch under it. seeing marge is a euro. it should stay put then. i have 4 planted in the yard and 2 up at the orchard.
1 Like
I have 3 American elderberry cultivars and a couple wild plants, the suckering really isn’t something I’m concerned about (same for the brambles.) The neighbors have commercial landscapers, and their actually invasive crap creeps into my yard all the time. At least my stuff is useful. I kinda want it to form a thick hedge between the houses anyways.
4 Likes
The neighbor weed wacked 3 of the suckers from my mom’s John that was on my mom’s property, she’s … Very angry
3 Likes
I suspect many nurseries don’t know the differences between elderberry species cause they either just have stock plants for propagation and so don’t get to see them mature, or worse, they just buy them in from wholesalers and don’t even have experience growing them at all.
1 Like
ive never seen a elder for sale at local nurseries here despite them being a state native. just started to see haskap show up a few years ago. for some reason we only have wild red elder up here and its everywhere.
1 Like
I don’t get suckering, but it’s only been 3 years and mine are in ultra crap soil and either morning sun or afternoon sun. Doesn’t stop Nova from already being 8 feet tall, wild thing. Love it.
3 Likes
yeah. elders seem to thrive on neglect. only thing they seem to struggle with is weed/ grass competition when they’re young. once established though get out of the way! my johns is 3 and last year i had canes pushing 14ft. huge 12 to 14in cymes. growing in crappy , rocky, heavy clay with no fertilizer or watering with hundreds of walking onions growing around its base. gets 12+ hours of light. i need to cut everything back in half every spring to control it and it still manages to flop into my mowing lanes. the chickens enjoy what berries we dont use.
3 Likes
14’ is big! Have you tried chopping it to the ground? I left about 1’ this winter. My ones with only morning sun are a few feet shorter (getting close to 6’ now), and I actually want them taller on that side, so I think I’ll leave them around waist high next winter.
2 Likes
i posted a pic of it with my son and grand daughter on here last summer but i dont remember on what thread.
ive chopped back any weak, misshapened canes as well as the smaller ones not in the middle of the row. the big canes start to flop over once full of fruit so i chop them once harvested. seems like for every cane cut it sends out 2 or 3 more.
1 Like
John put up new growth canes this year that are about as thick as a broom handle… this is first full year in ground.
That’s 3 of the new canes that came up about a foot from it that the neighbor came over into my mom’s yard and cut down/weed wack. Also some flower pics. It’s loaded with them.
If anyone has a good jelly recipe please share 
5 Likes
I must agree that propagation can be such a rewarding experience. My elder cuttings were stuck in a pot in late winter, so predictably they took a long time to start…but once they got going the roots grew quickly.
2 Likes
My nova always winning the vigor race. Was cut to 1’ in January. That’s a 6’ fence it’s next to. It feels like it grows a foot a week when April hits. Flower heads are too high up for my liking! This one’s for the birds.
5 Likes
I have a 4 ft round mound with 2 crowns of wild southerrn elders planted. They have filled up that mound and are sending root shoots up outside it… which get mowed.
I dont need more… or I would dig and transplant some of those root shoots.
TNHunter
1 Like
How do elderberries determine when they flower? Does each like seedling/variety always flower at the same time or do they just flower when they get the energy to do it?
Along the roadside we have elderberries flowering and fruiting nearly every month (if not every month) and was wondering if I uprooted one that flowered in March, if it would always flower in March, or would it just flower whenever it stored up enough energy to do so (say like November as an example). If they always flower at (or around) the same time, it might be worth it to grab one thats flowering in each month so that I can always have elderberries.
3 Likes