Sambucus Elderberry Easy Fruit Kit

The Sambucus Elderberry Easy Fruit Kit contains both Samdal and Samly varieties. Newer elderberry varieties from Denmark, these Elderberry shrubs are attractive, fast-growing, summer-flowering and are perfectly at home in an ornamental or edible landscape. The shrubs grow to a mature size of 10 to 20 feet tall with a similar width, its long shoots growing from the soil. The shoots are covered in large, pinnately compound, serrated, dark green leaves, and when pollinated, bear fruit the second season. In early summer, large, lacy clusters of tiny creamy white flowers bloom, followed by beautiful bunches of drooping blue-black berries in late summer. Foliage is malodorous when crushed, but the flowers smell sweet and musky. The blooms attract butterflies, and the berries bring in songbirds if left unharvested.

The berries and leaves of the Elderberry bush have both medicinal and culinary uses. Elderberries are very high in anthocyanin, a color pigment and powerful antioxidant, and they are a good source of vitamin A, iron, magnesium, phosphorus, and potassium. They are used in the kitchen to make jams, jellies, pies, syrups, and wine, and the flowers can be cooked and used in teas, cordials, and ointments.

Sambucus nigra varieties, commonly called elderberry, both Sambucus Samdal and Sambucus Samly are multi-stemmed deciduous shrubs that grow vigorously and spread through root suckering and self-seeding, but the bush is easily managed by pruning out unwanted suckers. Second year shoots should be removed after bearing berries. They will be replaced by the current year's growth.

These large elderberry shrubs can be used as background plants in a garden bed, but they make wonderful understory woodlanders, where they can naturalize. They are a great option for a butterfly garden or a rain garden.

Samdal and Samly are cell grown plants, which provide them with a strong root system. The shrubs are easy to grow, low maintenance, and cold hardy to Zone 3. They grow best in full to part sun in soil that is fertile, moist, and freely draining, with a slightly acidic pH of 6.0 to 6.5. Fertilize them in early spring.

Samdal is the more productive variety, but both Sambucus Samdal and Samyl varieties are required for cross pollination, and 1 Samyl shrub will pollinate up to 5 Samdal shrubs. Plants arrive dormant.