Elderberry black - photo and description, cultivation and properties
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BLACK BEAD - GROWING EVERYWHERE, TREAT EVERYTHING!
Elderberry is black grows, as a rule, among lovers of fresh outlandish berries and wonderful plants, the properties of which are not clear to everyone. They say that black elderberry scares away evil spirits and does not let black souls into the house.
IT IS INTERESTING
Over the years of friendship with a man, elderberry has grown into legends. One of them tells of the journey of a nobleman and his hunting in one of the dense forests. As a result, the nobleman got lost, lagged behind the retinue, and stumbled into a forest in the forest on a lonely hut and a young man crying on her porch. The nobleman asked about the cause of his frustration, to which he received an answer, which shocked him.
It turns out that the old man strongly scolded his father for the fact that he could not transfer his grandfather through the river and dropped it into the water. The nobleman, very surprised by this answer, went into the house, where he saw several more people of advanced age, but in excellent physical shape. To a question quite reasonable in such a situation about the reason for reaching such a venerable age, people answered him that they had lived all their lives in the forest, ate their bread, milked cows, drank their milk and ate cheese cooked with their own hands, and black elderberry fruits were always eaten for dessert in great numbers.
At one time, the center of Europe was gripped, like a fever, by the news that black elderberry prolongs life and leads to immortality. Some claimed that elderberry cures, while others believed that elderberry helps to see the future. Where the truth is not clear here, however, elderberry fruits are used both as a food product and as a raw material for medicines.
A hundred diseases were treated with various parts of the black elderberry plant, including colds, rheumatism, stomach and intestinal diseases, sciatica, various skin diseases, as well as liver and kidney diseases. More recently, the medicinal properties of black elderberry have been recognized by official medicine.
See also: Growing black elderberry - planting and care, varieties
WHAT LOVES AND WHAT IS NOT
Black elderberry, being a southern culture, can also live periodically in cooler regions, if the flowers do not fall under freezing frosts, and shoots do not die from frost in winter, and even give good crops. It is even easier to collect fruits in the central regions of Russia, because there trees rarely exceed three meters.
To grow elderberry bush on its plot is not difficult. The main thing is the abundance of sunlight. The plant does not require watering, but on too dense soils, where stagnation of melt or rain water is observed, it is better not to plant it.
Soils that are optimal for planting are considered to be quite moist, loamy and, of course, fertile. But on sandy and excessively dry soils, it is better not to plant elderberries or plant them only if they are adequately watered and fertilized with mineral fertilizers (usually on these soils only one fertilizing in spring and one in the middle of summer, in both cases, a couple of teaspoons of nitroammophos dissolved in water )
He loves elderberry and protection from the cold north wind. It is wonderful if on the north side the bush will reliably protect the wall of the house or a high fence.
ATTENTION
In the central regions of Russia and a little to the north during the onset of cold weather, the near-trunk circle should be mulled with peat or humus with a layer of 6-7 centimeters, this will protect the root system from early frosts. This layer of mulch will come in handy in spring as well - it will become an additional nourishment for plants beginning to wake up.
BLACK ELDER ELIMINATES EASY
Most often, they use simple sowing of seeds, or green cuttings. Fruits for the selection of seeds are harvested after their full ripening (usually closer to the end of October), the seeds are extracted and then they are planted in nutrient and moist soil, buried a couple of centimeters.
For the convenience of treatments, it is better to sow seeds in rows, leaving row spacings of 25-30 cm wide. Usually, seed germination is small, within 10%, so you can sow more. On good soil, seedlings grow actively, and the next year after sowing, they reach a height close to a meter.
Elderberry propagates fairly well with green cuttings. Given the presence of a greenhouse, the rooting rate of green cuttings reaches 90%. Rooted cuttings are dug out of the greenhouse around mid-September and planted on a bed with nutritious and loose soil to grow another year, and only then transplanted to a permanent place.
The first few years of life, the trunks must be kept clean, watered as the soil dries up, loosen the soil and mulch with peat or humus. If the growth of shoots suddenly slows down, then you can resort to the introduction of organic matter, however, in order to avoid freezing of the shoots that have not had time to "mature", you can only do this in the spring (the same applies to the application of nitrogen fertilizers).
BLACK ELDER - GROWING AS ON YEAST
The plus and simultaneous disadvantage of elderberry is its overly active growth. This is good if it is used, say, as a green hedge, but if it is grown for the sake of fruits, it needs to be formed or annual sanitary pruning.
The latter is carried out before the budding of the kidneys begins. At the same time, all the bifurcated shoots are removed, the crops that are frozen to healthy wood are cut, all shoots that are dry, broken and growing inside the crown are removed. In addition, periodically remove old shoots, at least six years old, and maintain the height of the bushes at two meters.
As for the formation, the elderberry is most often formed in the form of a bush, leaving about two dozen different-aged and erect shoots.
Bushes bloom in their fourth year. Flowering is usually lingering, the first flowers appear approximately in the middle - the end of May, and elderberry completely blooms only in the middle of summer. Elderberry fruits ripen at the same time. The first of them in the brush become dark in August. Well, if you want to wait for the full ripening of all fruits in the brush, you will have to wait until the end of October.
Typically, all fruits ripen in the brush and wait for the harvest, cutting the whole brush. The fruits are not stored for a long time, so immediately after picking they are usually processed.
Reference by topic: Elderberry - types and varieties, name and photo. Useful properties of elderberry, planting and care
DECORATE ANY PLOT!
Currently, in addition to the common black elderberry, its decorative forms are also grown. So, for example, golden elderberry differs from the usual golden yellow color of leaves, turning pale only by mid-autumn. Golden-mottled shape pleases with leaves having yellow and uneven spots. This is a small tree, often a little over a meter, with a compact, spherical crown.
Among the varieties, the Guincho Pepl variety has gained popularity and is widespread. It is characterized by dark purple foliage, brightening closer to the second half of summer. The bush of this variety is medium-sized, the crown is slightly spreading.
Recently, the fashion for everything decorative has been spurring nurseries on elderberry breeding. Most often, it finds its application as a decoration of territories near administrative
IMPORTANT
buildings, it is planted in summer cottages, or near private houses, decorating the territory. However, it should be remembered that the decorative forms of black elderberry are often less winter-hardy than its wild species, therefore, in winter, in the center of Russia, and even more so in the northern regions of the country, plants should be covered.
If you look at the black elderberry through the eyes of a biologist, it will be difficult to distinguish the black from the red, but this is a matter of life and death. The fruits of black elderberry are edible, but the red ones are poisonous. The first differences can be seen during the flowering period of these plants. So, for example, black elderberry flowers are collected in very large umbrella-shaped inflorescences reaching a diameter of 22 cm, but red flowers, having a greenish-yellow color and not at all attractive in appearance, are collected in denser brushes with a diameter of 4-6 cm. Black elderberry in her name, rather than black, but dark blue. More observant people can distinguish black elder from red by the smell of leaves, which can be safely called unpleasant in red elder.
BTW
In terms of nutrition, the fruits are valuable, although they do not differ in special taste. They contain a large number of biologically active substances, sugars, organic acids, more than 40% vitamin C, carotene, as well as P-active and tannins, amino acids and more 7% fiber. For medicinal purposes, in addition to fruits, elderberry flowers are also used, they contain sambuni-green glycoside, rutin and choline, as well as vitamins and organic acids. Essential oils, vitamins, carotene are present in elderberry leaves, and there are a lot of biologically active substances in the cortex.
BLACK ELDER - USEFUL PROPERTIES: VIDEO
© Author: Nikolai Khromov, a remarkable specialist in his field
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