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Planting
Days to maturity
Seasonal yields
Sow indoors · Direct sow · Transplant outdoors
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Plant · P-463
Blue Elderberry
Sambucus nigra subsp. caerulea
Blue elderberry is the western North American elder, native from British Columbia south through California and east into Montana, Texas and Mexico, and considered the best-flavored of the continent's native elders. All parts of the plant except the fully ripe fruit are poisonous, so the berries and flowers only get used cooked, dried or preserved - never raw. It can be kept pruned as a large shrub or let grow into a small tree up to fifty feet, and a fruiting plant draws almost as much wildlife as a crop, feeding birds, bears, deer, elk and moose. It spreads by root suckers into large colonies, which is exactly what makes it useful as a hedge or a streambank stabilizer if it is given a hard annual cut.
Record at a glance
Growing profile
- Sun
- Full Sun · Partial Sun
- USDA zone
- USDA 4–9
- Soil
- Sand · Loam · Clay
- Moisture
- Dry · Well-Drained · Moist
Vertical layer
Shrub- Soil pH
- 6.1–7.8
- Plant type
- Perennial
- Mature height
- 6–30 ft
- Mature spread
- 15–30 ft
- Plant spacing
- 10–15 ft
- Root type
- Tap
- Spread pattern
- Root
Keep exploring
Similar plants
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Alloberberis trifoliolata
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American Beautyberry
Callicarpa americana
American Beautyberry is an arching deciduous shrub of rich woods, moist thickets and swamp edges across the southeastern and south-central…
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American Black Currant
Ribes americanum
American black currant is a multi-stemmed deciduous shrub native to the cooler parts of eastern and central North America, from Alberta to…
Shrub · USDA 3–7
American Elderberry
Sambucus canadensis
American Elderberry gives two harvests a year - creamy flower clusters in June for cordial, fritters and tea, and purple-black berries in…
Shrub · USDA 4–8
American Gooseberry
Ribes hirtellum
American gooseberry is a low, multistemmed shrub native from Labrador and Manitoba south to Maryland and Iowa, and the wild parent behind…
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American Hazelnut
Corylus americana
American Hazelnut is a thicket-forming shrub that bears small, thick-shelled nuts good raw or cooked, and it pollinates itself, so a single…
Shrub · USDA 4–9
The deeper layer
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- Primary
- Locked ecological function
- Secondary
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- Byproduct
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Behind the record
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