I was thrilled the last few weeks to see that two of the pots of red elderberry seeds have germinated. They are just tiny plants right now but they have a bright future.
These wee ones will grow into deciduous shrubs that may top out at twenty feet tall. They will produce bright red berries. Interestingly, the seeds inside the berries are poisonous but the berries themselves are not. Indigenous people removed the seeds and used these berries as food and as medicine. In modern times the berries have been found to have cancer-fighting abilities and are also used in sinus sprays.
Another dichotomy this plant presents is that its flowers have a mild sweet fragrance but its leaves, when crushed, have a pungent unpleasant smell. These plants love a moist area and are mostly found in riparian areas from sea level on up. They bloom typically in April and the berries ripen in late June or July.
Please see more about S. racemoa here and here. I will plant one of my seedlings in my own garden despite the anticipated size. They aren’t something you see in people’s yards at all so it seems critical to introduce one to the neighborhood through my native plant garden and to introduce more when I give the other seedlings to neighbors.