Elderberry (Sambucus) is a popular deciduous shrub valued for its flowers and dark, nutritious berries. These versatile plants grow quickly, offering ornamental appeal and a useful crop for syrups, wines, and jellies. Establishing a successful elderberry patch requires providing the correct environment and ensuring proper planting distances. Correct spacing minimizes competition for resources and helps maintain the health and productivity of the plant.
Determining Spacing Based on Purpose
The distance between elderberry bushes depends on the grower’s specific goals, such as maximizing yield, creating a dense barrier, or allowing for natural growth.
Commercial Production
For commercial or high-yield production, plants are set closer together to maximize the harvestable fruit per acre. This intensive planting usually involves placing individual bushes four to five feet apart within the row. The rows themselves are spaced widely, often ten to twelve feet apart, to allow for machinery access during maintenance and harvesting.
Dense Screens and Windbreaks
For creating a dense visual screen or a windbreak, tighter spacing encourages the canes to grow into an interwoven thicket quickly. Planting bushes three to four feet apart prompts them to form a solid, continuous hedge as they mature. This close arrangement restricts the individual size of each bush but results in a dense wall of foliage.
Home Gardens
When planting for aesthetic purposes in a home garden, wider spacing is preferred to allow each shrub to reach its full, natural size and shape. An eight to ten-foot separation ensures adequate air circulation, which discourages fungal diseases like powdery mildew. This greater distance also allows the root system and canopy to fully develop without competing for sunlight and nutrients.
A foundational consideration for all elderberry plantings is the necessity for cross-pollination to ensure a substantial fruit set. Most American and European elderberry cultivars are not self-fertile and require a different compatible variety planted nearby. For effective pollination, at least two distinct cultivars should be planted within fifty to sixty feet of one another to facilitate pollen transfer by wind and insects.
Site Selection and Soil Preparation
Proper site selection is a prerequisite for elderberry success, as the shrubs thrive in specific environmental conditions. For maximum fruit production, the location should receive full sun, though elderberries will tolerate partial shade with a corresponding reduction in yield. A site with good air movement is also beneficial, as stagnant air can increase the risk of disease.
Elderberries perform best in well-drained, loamy soils that can retain consistent moisture without becoming waterlogged. Although they can tolerate a range of conditions, they dislike heavy clay soils that hold too much water, which can lead to root rot. If the existing soil is poorly draining, planting on a raised berm or ridge can help prevent waterlogging around the shallow root system.
The ideal soil reaction for elderberries is slightly acidic to neutral, typically falling within the pH range of 5.5 to 6.5. Testing the soil before planting is recommended to determine if amendments are needed to adjust the pH. To improve soil structure, fertility, and drainage prior to planting, thoroughly mix in organic matter, such as well-rotted compost or aged manure, into the entire planting area.
Essential Planting Techniques
The physical act of planting an elderberry bush involves careful attention to the root system and the final soil grade. Begin by digging a planting hole that is approximately twice as wide as the root ball of the nursery plant. The depth of the hole should be no deeper than the height of the root ball to prevent the plant from settling too low in the ground.
Before placing the bush into the prepared hole, gently loosen any roots that are tightly bound or circling the root ball. This encourages them to spread into the surrounding soil. The crown of the plant, which is the point where the roots transition into the main stem, should be positioned level with or slightly above the native soil grade.
Backfill the hole with the excavated soil, gently firming it around the roots. This eliminates any large air pockets that could dry out the root system.
Following the backfilling process, provide a deep, thorough watering to settle the soil around the roots and ensure immediate hydration. Once the water has soaked in, apply a two-to-four-inch layer of organic mulch, such as wood chips or straw, over the entire planting area. This mulch layer conserves soil moisture and helps suppress weed competition, but it is important to keep the material several inches away from the main stem of the bush to prevent the bark from rotting.