One thing I have learned about myself is I have a hard time not trying to get as much as possible out of the orchard. I have let my trees grow too big and now they touch and shade out other spots. Especially elderberries. My elderberries are 20 feet tall and now that they are ripening, they are falling over into my pool, my peaches, and blackberries. To make things worse they are loused with cat birds, SWD, and tent caterpillars. They are so big I can’t properly spray them or net them or do much of anything except try and gather the few ripe berries the cat birds have missed. I am the dog that dropped his bone for the bigger one and ended up with nothing.
So, how do I prune these things? and when? It seems like I would want them no taller than 6 feet and I would be okay with 25% of the flower heads I have now, which I think would actually give me more berries.
Yes, I keep them small. It helps to not let them get big. Makes it a lot easier. I remove the oldest canes each summer after fruiting. I keep them at about 5 feet tall. Going on 5th leaf next year.
So do you prune the old canes down to 5 feet, then let them grow from there? Or prune them to the ground and let them grow to 5 feet? I pruned mine to about ten feet and they decided they wanted to grow another 10 feet before flowering.
By the way, I had great success grafting the Satsuma plum scions you sent me. Thanks again.
if they are that unmanageable id prune out the problem branches now and cut them to the ground this fall. they will come back in spring and you can prune them to the size you prefer. mine are in 4th leaf and i pruned them hard last fall. they came back strong and more upright than they were before i pruned. any weak scraggly canes were pruned out young. now they’re a nice upright vase shape about 8ft tall. so far i havent had bug issues here. you must have the european or western elders if they’re that big.
they will but not a full crop till’ the 2nd year. i put in 2 10’’ tall york and adams this spring and both have 5-6 cymes each already. they grow really fast!
Mine is more like a shrub, I cut them down to a couple inches. New canes form on base, you can leave it taller. Here is a good rule, if not many canes, cut old canes done to new grow. Cut it down to first new lateral. Often the canes grow horizontal now. Use this method on blueberries too! Mine grows flower heads if you look at it funny.
Other types may not respond, these are new cultivars Euro elderberries used for commercial production. I almost prune them like blackberries. Only leaving new canes and removing 1 year canes after fruiting. I do leave some 1 years at times although remove all 2 year canes.
I just harvested the last of my elderberries a few days ago. I have not pruned yet, will soon. Here they are today before pruning. Each bush gets around 15 flower heads. Over 2 gallons. If I let them grow more, i could get a lot more.
last fall i took out all my older ones and left that years canes and they grew out stronger and more upright. its like when you limit the amount of canes growing, all the plants energy is going into the canes left and making new canes. going to have a good harvest of them this fall. they’re so full of fruit i had to cut some cymes off to keep them from bending over on the lawn when it rains. these are commercial variety wylewood.
had 2 bob gordon but fruited too late to ripen here, so i pulled them and planted a york and adams last spring. both are about 5ft. and fruiting. wylewoods are right full of fruit! huge cymes. they have much more vigor since i prunned them last fall. i also have the only wild black elderberry I’ve ever found wild around here, not far from my others. found it on a fishing trip on a logging road in the middle of nowhere. not fruiting yet but about 3ft tall. last 2 years I’ve been lucky finding berry types I’ve never seen before around here. still looking for the cloudberry.
