Growing black elderberry - planting and care, varieties
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How and why to grow black elderberry - description and varieties
I noticed that gardeners write infrequently about elderberries, although this plant is very valuable and healthy and quite unpretentious - it grows and grows.
It grows, by the way, very quickly, it occupies a considerable area and forms a large green mass. However, I will immediately say that I will tell you about the elderberry black.
This elderberry is good as an ornamental plant, and as a medicinal plant with edible fruits, and a good honey plant.
From berries we, for example, cook jam and jam, as well as harvest flowers and dry fruit for the home medicine chest.
Features and description of black elderberry
Elderly animals or insects do not eat the elderberry, because its stem, leaves and roots are poisonous for them, but at the same time ripened berries are suitable for food and are safe for birds and for humans.
The plant releases into the environment some substances that repel harmful insects not only from itself, but also from neighboring cultures.
Black elderberry is a deciduous plant, shrub or tree, reaching a height of 5-7 m. Fruits are drupes with three seeds, according to the number of carpels of which the ovary consists, the color is dark blue (or dark purple). The bark is light gray, covered with cracks. Young shoots are green, with a white soft core.
I heard that the black elder is not winter hardy and not frost-hardy, that's why it probably is not taken to grow gardeners.
This is probably true, and somewhere in the Urals or in Siberia, it will indeed be very hard to freeze and reluctantly bear fruit, but our elderly elder grows well. Our experience confirms this.
And to grow elderberry is easy. At the beginning of summer, it is enough to break off the shoot directly from the heel from the stalk, then you need to cut the lower leaves. Next, we plant the handle in a mini-hotbed with a prepared substrate - sand and perlite must be added to the ground. We place the shank at a slope of 45 °, we beat a little bit of earth, and then we water and cover. After rooting, you can plant in a temporary place, and in the first wintering the plant is better to cover.
Elderberry still loves warmth, and therefore the place to choose is better lit, but - by the indirect sun. But in partial shade it will also be nice.
The flowers of black elder are collected in round umbelliform inflorescences up to 20 cm in diameter. Berries are almost black, edible to grow. It feels good on medium and even on heavy soils.
See also: Grass from rodents in the country - personal experience
Varieties of black elderberry
Elderberry black has even varieties that are intended for the collection of fruits. I know and recommend trying fruit varieties Donau and Adam Eldercerry. But most elder varieties were bred for decorative purposes. And here you can find the plants are completely different.
For example, this is the form of black elderberry fagus nana, characterized by low growth up to 1 m. Variety Hessei it is notable for arcuate bending branches.
Unusually looking varieties with a purple foliage Black Beauty, Guincho Purple, Eva and form fagus pupurea. Variegated leaves have shapes fagus albovariegata (white brush strokes on the green leaf), fagus argentea (green spots on almost white leaves), fagus aureovariegata (has a yellow border), fagus pulverulenta (white brushstrokes and stains), fagus marginata (with a silver fringe), grade Madonna (green leaves with a yellow border). Openwork and interesting foliage in the form fagus asplenifolia, this plant is somewhat like a fern; thin, original leaves are from the Darts Greenlace variety.
Black elderberry jam - video
© Author: Stepan Vladimirovich Fedorov, Samara
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Parents are asked to plant black elderberry on the site. They say that there will be no trouble with her at all, and she does not get sick. But I heard that the plant attracts various pests to the garden. .. So do you need an elderberry in the garden?
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- Black elderberry is really unpretentious. But as for attracting pests, you apparently mixed up something: from time immemorial, elderberries were planted precisely in order to scare away harmful insects and mice. Allocating phytoncides, the plant protects not only itself, but also its neighbors from the moths and moths.
For a long time it was believed that elderberry is not sick. Unfortunately, this is not true. On plants, one can find anthracnose, bacterial or rust spots on leaves, petioles. From anthracnose, use fungicides (Fundazole, Scor - at the first sign of 2-3 disease spraying after 7-10 days). Copper-containing preparations - Bordeaux liquid, copper sulfate solution - will cope with rust (in the spring before buds open - 300 g per 10 l of water; before flowering and after flowering - 100 g per 10 l of water).
Landing
Elderberry loves the sun and moist loamy fertile soil. It can be planted in spring and autumn. Fill the planting pit with a depth and width of 0,5 m with humus, turfy soil, peat and sand (2: 2: 1: 1). Leave 1,5-2 m in the row between the plants, but if you plan a hedge, then 1,2 m. After planting, cut off all shoots of seedlings, leaving 20-30 cm above the soil.
Trimming
In the first year after planting, leave only the two most powerful, non-competing shoots. And in subsequent years, form a bush of 10-12 branches of different ages from 1 to 6 years. Black elder usually comes into fruiting in the third year after planting.
Elderberry tolerates drought, grows rapidly. Thanks to its resistance to gas pollution from motorways, it is simply indispensable for hedges.
Elderberry leaves quickly decompose and enrich the soil. In addition, it was noted that if elderberry bushes were planted next to a compost heap, valuable fertilizer would ripen much faster.
Elderberry has some strange property of attracting aphids. Sometimes to such an extent that these harmful insects throw all other plants and crowd on elderberry branches. In this case, it becomes simple to deal with these pests: spray elderberry trees from aphids a couple of times with insecticides, and not the entire garden.
Natalya DORONINA, teacher at the School of Gardeners, Kaluga Region
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For some reason, elderly black gardeners are undeservedly deprived of attention. And at the same time this shrub has a powerful healing power and a rich vitamin-mineral composition. In this case, elderberry is very unpretentious: I feed it once a year (in spring or autumn) with organic or complex mineral fertilizers. The elder can grow both in the sun and in the shade. But for plant varieties with variegated leaves, still open lit areas are needed.
I advise you to plant 1-2-summer plants on a pre-prepared place in a mixture of peat, sand, turf and humus (1: 1: 2: 2). The root neck is left at ground level. After planting, the plants are watered and further monitor the moisture of the soil. In spring, elderberry feeds slurry (1: 10) or nitrogen fertilizers (15-20 g urea for digging). Once in 2-3 in the fall (in October) I bring in the organics (4-6 kg per 1 sq.m).
Every year in the spring (in March) I cut out the detachable 2-year-old branches, as well as broken, old, dry, thickening crowns. The height of the crown is maintained at the level of 2 m. The berries ripen in August-September. I prepare a medicinal syrup from them. In the 3-liter jar I fill the berries and sugar layers in approximately 4 cm. I put it in a cold place. The syrup is ready in a week. I accept on 1 des.L. after meal. A month later I take a week break, then I take it until the syrup is over. This drug removes coughing attacks, clears blood and lymph, fights against swelling, liver and gallbladder diseases, relieves constipation, raises hemoglobin levels, strengthens immunity, tones up the body.
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Why do not the black elder blossom blossom and turn black?
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Elderberry black plants are extremely rare, so the phenomenon described by you, most likely, is due to improper growth conditions. For example, because of the abundance of moisture in the soil. The root system is depressed, perhaps even rotting, this negatively affects the generative organs of the plant. Try to find out at what depth the groundwater is located in the area where the black elder grows, whether there is any stagnation of thawed or rainwater. If these phenomena occur, then the elder will have to be transplanted.
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Once I found elderberry sprout near a barn. Probably, the birds brought the seed - in our area the red elderberry grows, but no one plantes it in the front gardens, considering it a weedy bush. I decided that the elderberry would not bother anyone at the wall of the shed, and let it grow, but took up the formation of a bush.
In the first years of life, elderberry gives very large gains - up to 1,5 m per year, but branches with sparse leaves look shady and untidy. Later, annual growth decreases, the branches gain thickness and turn into trunks, the crown becomes lush and densely leafy. In the 2nd year I chose the strongest shoot, tied it to a stake, pinched the top and began to form in the form of a tree, and cut the rest of the shoots.
Now my elder tree is about 10 years old, and it shows no signs of aging. The knotted trunk is already in the man's hand thick, the crown is magnificent, almost spherical. The flowers of elderberry are not particularly prominent, yellow-green, but very bright brushes of bright scarlet berries that ripen already in July. It's funny, but in a neat tree not all neighbors recognize ordinary elder, they are interested: what is it that grows so beautiful?
The berries of red elderberry are inedible, but they are not too poisonous. The children constantly use them as ammunition for the shooters. It happens that a few berries are ingested, but no one has poisoned with such a dose. And wrinkled berries clean the soap from the hands of garden dirt.