ELDERBERRY
Elderberry cuttings. Ships in early spring 2024! Elderberry is a resilient, hardy, prolific plant with lots of benefits to both humans and wildlife. Plants are easy to propagate from cuttings (as easy as putting a stick in the ground), and produce both flowers and berries which can be used for syrups, jam, or cordial (berries are not to be eaten raw). Harvest the flowers early for making cordial, or leave them and they will turn into berries. Use the berries for a syrup or leave them and the birds will eat every single one!
Bushes grow to be around 8-12 ft tall and thrive in full sun or mostly sun. Put them in the in a corner or a back of a bed with plenty of room to grow.
You can find videos online about propagating from cuttings but what I recommend is this. Ideally start with a prepared garden bed, anything with soil that has been mulched and is free from grass. If you don’t have this already, you can also start the cuttings in pots until the ground is ready. Or truthfully, you may even have luck sticking them right in the grass where you want them as long as you mulch around them heavily (maybe some cardboard and woodchips). Make sure the bud ends are pointing up, and push them at least halfway into the ground. Mulch around them well with whatever you have (leaves, straw, woodchips). They will grow a foot or so the first year (pull off all the flowers in the beginning so that they can focus on establishing a root system). You may start getting fruit the 2nd year, and by the 3rd and 4th year they should be around full maturity. You can prune them to keep them smaller (and start more plants or share with your friends).