Troubles with Elderberry Bush Not Producing
Ruth from North Canton asks, “Elderberries. This is probably the fifth year that I’ve had it. I’ve not had any elderberries yet. You told me to use Big Bloom and I did, and the blooms were beautiful. No berries. The plant is probably 12 feet high. I’ve never seen an elderberry so high. I’m wondering what I should do with it. Should I cut it down and let it start over? What do I do?”
Sometimes stressing a plant will encourage it to bloom and then also produce fruit. It’s part of the reproduction process. I would not trim it super hard right now, I would wait to do a hard pruning until the end of March, beginning of April. Once the brunt of winter’s over, we can get that pruned up hard for next year.
If it’s an older plant, you can trim it back, but to be able to bring it back to like a three foot size is probably not practical. You’re going to be able to trim maybe, I mean, the AG universities never recommend more than one third of the new growth.
So we’re talking about cutting back, you know, years and years of generational growth. To do that, we want to do it at the right time of year. You want to do that at the end of March, beginning of April with that plant, and then give it a good dose of all season fertilizer.
That’s going to encourage a lot of blooming and should help encourage the fruit to set as well. The big bloom’s great too, that one that was recommended for you because that’s a liquid. It’s very quick acting, and we can use both that and the all season fertilizer in conjunction with each other, and they won’t overfeed the plant.
How many hours of sunlight is that In? Sometimes when we plant them, the shade trees grow up and they shade it. And it does like the sun. Do you have it covered or protected from birds?
If you got flowers, most likely you got berries unless there’s a pollination issue going around. But if it flowered, you should have gotten berries, but I’m guessing the birds got it before you did. Birds, the first sight of those elderberries ripening, they’re on them.
And same with blueberries and that kind of thing. Once they’re done flowering, if you net it, or if you can cover it, I know you said it was pretty large, but if you can do, because that’s my guess of what’s going on, is the birds are getting it before you are.
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