Blue Elderberry Propagation from Cuttings
I love, love, love propagating plants from prunings, transforming waste materials into new plants, I like to think about it as stewarding abundance. Sambucus cerulea, commonly known as Blue Elderberry, can be propagated by pruned material every year, and it fills a nice place in an agroforestry setting. This plant checks so many boxes which warrants all the praises and odes and uses. It’s a plant that deserves its flowers. Although Blue Elderberry can be propagated by seeds, I like to start them from hardwood cuttings and sell the seeds.
Blue Elderberry is native to the Pacific Northwest, and it has many uses. It is typically found in higher, drier places, but it will grow at cooler and lower elevations. Its edible and medicinal uses are abundant. People have made wine, jams, jellies, sauces, and supplements from elderberries. Birds really like to eat the fruits too, and I think that they are medicinal bird food. In addition to the edible uses, elderberry is a source of pop culture. In Monty Python and the Holy Grail, a French knight taunts King Arthur:
“I don’t want to talk to you no more, you empty-headed animal food trough wiper. I fart in your general direction. Your mother was a hamster and your father smelt of elderberries.”
Hardwood Cutting Propagation
Blue Elderberry Cuttings in 4 × 4 pots
Blue Elderberry can be coppiced, and the tips of its branches are propagation stock. I like to coppice the shrubs because it removes any dead wood from the plant to regenerate more productive stems. Also, this keeps the canopy lower to the ground making it easier to harvest flowers and berries. Birds enjoy eating the berries too. The higher the canopy, they greater the loss to predation. Another reason to coppice them is to get more early season light onto crops that grow lower in the canopy zone. Now that the elderberries are coppiced, collect cuttings. Cut just below and just above buds to prepare them for planting. I like my cutting segments to have three buds on them, and I try to get two in the soil, and one above the soil. I used 4 x 4 pots filled with potting soil because that’s what I had. I prefer to use deeper and skinnier pots to encourage more root growth deeper into the soil. This will defend against drought and put the roots in a position to mine water once the summer arrives.
Why Willow Water?
Willows contain rooting hormones, and that facilitates the rooting of cuttings. Willows contain a rich source of indolebutryic acid (IBA) and saliclyic acid (SA). IBA is the rooting hormone, and SA is a chemical that alerts the plant’s defense mechanisms. The two work together to promote root growth while protecting the vulnerable cuttings from pathogens.
Willow water is easy to make. I snap some willows and leave them in a bucket of water for a few days. This is enough time for the chemicals to leach into the water. Pour the water into a watering can, and water as normal. Only a few waterings are needed before getting into a regular watering interval. I like willow water because it is easy, natural, free, and it is made from pruning willows.
Elderberry Planting
I like to keep my starts in a nursery until the fall after the rain starts. The spring and summer are good times to prepare your planting sites. Try to remove any perennial weeds, smother grasses. I would think about heavily composting in areas, and then lay tarps where I will plant. The compost will add organic matter to the soil, and the tarps will shade out the grasses underneath. This should create a nice area to plant into once the fall rains return.
Influences
