They grow wild here and you can make some great wine and jelly from the fruit.

Probably the best use for the berries is medicinal: standard medical studies have actually shown them to reduce the length and severity of colds and flu, unlike Echinacea (which has not cut it in standard studies despite the wide belief in it's helpfulness).

Elderberries are not really edible raw, so I would only recommend them if you are really looking for something that takes care of itself and fruits abundantly AND you like processing berries into things like jelly as nod mentioned already. Even processed, the numerous seeds and/or musky flavor can be problematic for things like pie though.

I remove seeds with a simple sieve screen, and think they taste great, now black currants, there we have a musky flavor.

first off... plant them in the soil.. not ON the lawn ... lol ...

i had one at my first house... un named ... no history .. etc ... could had been a rogue seedling at some point in its life ....

most vile tasting thing you could stick in your mouth ...

and once it got going a major huge.. ugly .... bush ... keep in mind.. while carving out your new lawn ... that growing fruit.. can be aesthetically pleasing ... there are a lot of things.. that wont end up ugly ... see link for size potential ...

as i had no interest in jelly or wine making.. it died ... mysteriously .. one weekend ... when i took off after it with a shovel and ax ... well??? .. not really much mystery there.. lol ..

ken

Here is a link that might be useful: look down a bit.. the one with the older lady .. that is a huge freakin bush ...

Elderberries are ofen used for ornamental purposes only. Such as the variegated ones, the purple ones, the beautiful leafed ones. They look like lace, awesome! I really admire Black Beauty and Black Lace, excellent cultivars. I have 7 plants myself. And you can't beat the taste of the jam, most amazing. I guess an aquired taste?? Jam was sold by Smuckers. Not sure they make it still? I loved that jam! So grow my own. I also enjoy taking the flowers and making tea, it's really sweet, and most excellent.

Two different variegated species. I have both. These are not my plants though. Mine are new and very small.
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Black Lace

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Drew where did you buy your black lace elderberries bushes.. I have 1 bush but it must need another [the word left me it doesn't flower.]id love a black lace one..thanks alott, molly

That bush with the white leaves looks diseased. Very ugly! Maybe in a landscape it would look different.
I planted a Black Lace this past summer. Are the berries the same as the ones on the wild fencerow varieties? I wasn't sure if they would be palatable, or if the bush was grown more for looks. I figured if they weren't very good, the birds would enjoy them, since I fence or net them from the other goodies in my garden. Northwoodswis

That bush with the white leaves looks diseased. Very ugly! Maybe in a landscape it would look different.

It's my favorite, it looks like it is flowering from far away. Looks like white flowers. It's the whitest variegation I have seen. Some dogwoods and beeches though also have very cool variegation. Even though I like elderberries. if it was my first fruit tree in TX. I would probably go with something else. Elderberry is more a secondary fruit to me.
I would plant peach or plum, or whatever grows good locally in your area.

I can't remember where I got the Black Lace? I have bought from dozens of nurseries. I can name a few that have it.
Joy Creek Nursery has it. I got the variegated elders from there.
Raintree Nursery has it
Forestfarm at Pacifica has it.
Burnt Ridge Nursery has it also.

Another photo of Sambucus nigra 'Pulverulenta'
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Elderberry jam is pretty good, though I like black current better. Black currant is more sharp (sweet/sharp when you add plenty of sugar), while elderberry has a milder, muskier taste to me. I usually mix elderberry with Triple Crown blackberries, as they ripen around the same time.

They can definitely get big. By 4th leaf, my Samdal was 12' tall by 12' wide. I've done some major pruning since then- probably too much as there was very little harvest from it this year.

I have to grow some black currants, sounds good! I have reds only, well red, white and pink.
I'm growing three species of elders, but they are all small. I did get a harvest this year, pretty good! When I move I have to start over, oh well. I will add black currants at that time. I need to propagate the reds to take with me.

Email me if you want me to send you some black currant cuttings. They propagate pretty easily. I've just shoved the cutting in the ground in the fall and by spring I have a new plant.

So getting back to the Black Lace Elderberry, do they taste the same as the traditional kinds? Has anyone tasted them?
Northwoodswis

Elderberries make poor jam because of the seeds. But they make a tasty jelly since the seeds are strained out. Personally I prefer the taste of black currants but the bushes are by no measure remotely ornamental in the way an Elder can be. Also, here at least, Elder has no pests or diseases to speak of. It is so common in hedgerows here that no one grows it for the fruit but the ornamental versions are widely planted.

Well I make a seedless jam, I guess I just cannot conform. I rarely make jelly. It's jam as I do not use a jelly bag, but I do run it through a fine screen that removes seeds. As I do with currant, strawberries and brambles. Most of the pulp survives in the mix. I just like my jam seedless. Well my family does, if for me I would leaves the seeds in. Most seeds have anti-cancer properties. I know they do with raspberries. I eat plenty of them raw anyway.

Black Lace berries to me taste the same but it is a low producer. Many people here grow the American elderberry, I have mostly the European. I'm not sure of the taste difference as I have not had any berries from the American species. Actually in America we have 2 native species that are consumed, three if you count the wine made from the reds. The cutivar "Marge" is a cross of American and European species.
The three species are:
Sambucus nigra (European)
Sambucus canadensis (USA)
Sambucus caerulea (USA)

I also grow a yellow fruited nigra, but have not tasted berries yet. It should have some next year. The cultivar is "Goldbeere" it is from Germany.

You shoud try making tea with the flowers, it's awesome!

Molly,

Black Lace can be stubburn to flower, and it should flower if you have another bush or not. It may not fruit without a 2nd bush. I would try Black Beauty, Laciniata or Emerald Lace. You need another cultivar for fruit, not the same one.
When I think about it Nigra species is somewhat self fruitful, so you don't need a 2nd bush although a 2nd bush would make them produce more fruit. It's canadensis that is not self fruitful. If you want fruit though best to grow one meant for fruit. Bob mentioned he has Samdal a nigra species that fruits very well. Samyl fruits even better! Both can be obtained from Nourse Farms. I would get that for fruit. Lace and the others are not really great producers as you are finding out. Well some of the ornamentals produce OK Emerald Lace produces fairly well.
I like the variegated species, but they too are not grown for fruit as much and require some shade.
The really white one Sambucus nigra 'Pulverulenta' is tough to grow. I lost one this year due to the extreme winter. I replaced it this spring. I just like it so much, I'm still trying to figure out how to grow it well.
Now the other variegated species Sambucus nigra 'Albovariegata' grows like a weed, but is susceptable to fungal disease, it needs to be sprayed.
It is also a very handsome plant. Mine is getting big! I grow them at my cottage as I have low light there and am trying to find low light plants that are edible. it has been a difficult challenge. Cornus Mas though grows well there, and so I have a couple cultivars of that up there.

Molly I would try feeding your bush with Holly-Tone. The PH might be too high, and the complete nutrition of Holly-Tone may help if maybe it is a lack of a micro-nutrient.
Holly-Tone has sulfur and will lower PH slightly over time.
Adding iron might help too. Elders like a PH of around 6.0
A soil test could help determine the problem. Sometimes in low light they will not fruit.
.

I'm not fond of elderflower tea but they do make an excellent cordial which is delicious diluted with fizzy water and served with ice and a slice. It's available commercially here as 'elderflower presse'. It makes a refreshing sorbet too. Elderflower wine can be good and we also make a sparkling drink, either alcoholic or not, depending on the method, which we call elderflower 'champagne'. A few umbels cooked with gooseberries gives them a kind of muscatel flavour.

Here is a link that might be useful: Elderflower recipes

A friend pointed me toward a good source of fruiting elderberry cultivars this past spring, which I'll link below.
Nice little plants at reasonable prices.

Here is a link that might be useful: Elderberries @ Botany Shop

Lucky that is a good site! I purchased from them and the plants grew well, small, but I would order from them again, probably will! Some unique cultivars too! Thanks Floral for the recipes! Awesome!

They are not tasty raw, though I put them in my smoothies. Cooked into jelly or syrup, they have a very distinct flavor that I enjoy....musky is a good description.

As plants, they are easy to grow, but they are unruly.....spreading into a thicket. The fruits are tedious to harvest as well. On the plus side, IMO, is that they flower for about 6 weeks, and the birds like the fruit, but there is so much that you still get a lot.

Alex

I cut the fruit heads off, freeze them and then strip them, takes no time at all. They fall right off. I do screen them so I don't worry about branches and stems falling in. Some unripe fruit is removed etc. Also the new cultivars Samyl and Samdal can be pruned easily. You prune off canes that fruit, Much like raspberries. Easy to maintain a small frutiful bush. Canes flower 2nd year.

I agree with Drew51 - they are about the easiest berry fruit to harvest imo. You just pick entire umbels of berries and then back at base run a fork though them and the berries come off. I don't even freeze them first but it sounds like a fair idea. Since I only use them in various strained forms a few bits of stalk are neither here nor there.

I don't care for the fresh fruit but my kids love 'em. My one year old would demand them whenever we passed the bush and never seemed to get enough - makes for a difficult clean-up problem since they stain, so in time I'd learn to take long circuitous walks to avoid proximity to the bush. When the long fruiting season was finally over, it was met with sadness/relief. Makes me think that instead of being an acquired taste, elderberries may be the victims of an acquired distaste, as they deviate so from the sweet smooth paradigm of the Western diet.