Whatever Happened to the Elderberries

A few years ago I cut some elderberry branches, rooted them and stuck them in the ground.

They grew.  

And they survived last year's horrible winter.

I saw little pink buds last week.   The two by the chicken coop are the happiest.   The ducks hang out around there and poop all over the place and that spot gets a bit of run-off from the garden so it's well watered. 

Maybe elderberries this year?

Elderberry Progress

After last winter, I despaired of most of my new trees, but they've done really well.

These are two of the elderberry plants I rooted last year via cuttings in a jar of water.

They're doing great!

Of the six that I planted, five lived through the winter.    This means elderberries maybe this year!   I'm so excited.  

Elderberry Progress

All six of my elderberry starts are alive.  This is the happiest one.  We planted it just up from the chicken coop at a place that gets a lot of run-off from the hills in the spring and then the veg garden all summer.

I think it likes it there.

Elderberry Cuttings

I've been wanting elderberry bushes forever. 

For. Ever.

We bought some nice expensive ones years ago, but they died.   Since they grow wild around here, I couldn't justify buying more, so I read up and learned that they start reasonably reliably from cuttings.

Some say you should root them in water with willow twigs [which release a rooting hormone into the water].  Others say you should just stick them in the ground as soon as possible.   

I got my cuttings and stuck them in water with willow for a day -  I don't know if that was long enough to get enough hormone from the willow, but I figured it wouldn't hurt while we decided just where to put them.  

I got 6 cuttings from a neighbor whose wild bush sprouted at the mouth of a culvert, down in the ditch.   

We stuck 4 cuttings next to a wet area that grows a lot of orange grass [Acorus calamus] and we stuck 2 cuttings on the hill between the chicken coop and the veg garden where the garden drainage runs down the hill.   They'll get plenty of water there. 

We protected them with fence to keep the rabbits off them and mulched around them with cardboard so they can get a head start from the grass.  

Fingers crossed that most of them take.    I love elderberries.