ok guys I've hear you guys talking about them for years, now so I order 5 from conservation district, how do I plant them all in one spot? how close together ?

They get pretty big, I'd say 8 feet

They're pretty forgiving- I plant wherever I have Red Osier Dogwood, so moist well drained soil, I have them in full-sun and partial shade and they do well. Don't plant them too far from camp if you're planning to make wine someday.

Elderberry bushes are self fertile, so they don't have to be close together for pollination. 8' is about the closest you should plant them. They can take full sun to partial shade. They can tolerate fairly dry soil, but prefer areas that get a lot of water. If you pinch off the blooms the first year, the bushes will establish better. Once the berries are ripe, birds will quickly strip the berries off, so you will need to protect them, or harvest them quickly, if you want them.

Keith

They dont do well in higher pH - over 7 on my ground

thanks guys, about how high do they grow?

do they spread thru roots? do deer eat them?

8 ft in the wild. Use a coarse comb to pick them.

Deer will eat the foliage, tender new browse shoots and I would say sometimes berries

thanks

How about raccoons? Possums?

Also the spotted wing fruit fly lays eggs in them. A real problem in many parts of America. Some of my European elderberries were devastated this year.

One thing to think about on spacing...most spacing recommendations are based on max production. Obviously most people will go that route and go with the recommended spacing. If you bunch them closer, your will lose some production but you'll gain in keeping weeds out because you'll deny undergrowth sunlight.

One thing to keep in mind with north American elderberries is that they can be coppiced annually. That is actually the preferred way to grow them commercially in the midwest. When cut down to the ground the new suckers come up and produce a terminal cyme on each sucker. Easy to manage them that way. But even when you cut them down to ground level, under good growing conditions you can expect those suckers to make 7-10 ft worth of growth. The variety "Ranch" is a little shorter than some of the others.

I have several hundred (maybe 1000's by now) elderberry plants on my farm. Some native and some domestic varieties. They propagate easily. Cuttings are my favorite as they are simple to do. We take around 700-1000 cuttings annually. I've made videos on YouTube showing the process, if interested pm me and I can get you the link. Essentially, elderberry plants are a "weed" and will grow most anywhere. They will be most happy in a moist, well drained location in full sun but will tolerate partial shade. We have some natural stands of Elderberry plants, where they are pretty thick. I like to plant my propagations ~3' apart in rows. We pick the ripe clusters of berries and freeze them overnight. the berries will literally shake off the stems. I store the destemmed elderberries in 5-gallon buckets in the freezer. We make elderberry syrup, elderberry tinctures, elderberry gummies, and my favorite elderberry wine!

I just ordered 6 plants from Gurney's. I hope to get good results in 4-5 years.

Unless you pinch the flowers off, you'll have fruit next year. Elderberry loves rabbit manure and peat moss. In the right conditions, you'll have a lot of fruit in 2 years. Elderberry starts producing well fast.

My variety, Remembrance, which I discovered and got to name, thanks to Beaverpeeler, will often have a dozen or so heads of fruit, the year after being planted from cuttings. After this Quailcon, Remembrance is being grown in 30 some states.

Keith

Raised a whitetail and he would go nuts for the berries. His white throat patch would turn purple from juice leaking down his neck