Golden Elderberry Bush

Get gilded with the Golden Elderberry Bush (Sambucus canadensis 'Aurea') and enjoy a fast-growing shrub with several ornamental features that set it apart from your typical American Elderberry bush! But these chartreuse beauties retain their native rugged nature, hardiness, adaptability, and vigorous growth!

The foliage features a handsome, yellow to golden-green hue that will not fade throughout the growing season! In late spring or early summer the fine-textured foliage will soon be festooned in large fragrant clusters made up of star-shaped tiny florets massed together to form flat-topped bouquets! These pollinator-friendly landing pads add a lacy accompaniment to the lively foliage!

As summer progresses into fall, red drupes ripen, awaiting your harvest. The edible fruit makes outstanding jam, syrup, and wine or can be left on the shrub for the nutritional value it holds for songbirds and wildlife! Plus the flowers and fruit retain the American Elderberries medicinal value, prized for its ability to help fight colds and flu!

The Golden Elder Elderberry is a deciduous shrub with a broad, rounded shape and is tolerant of a variety of conditions! Very heat and cold-hardy throughout the USDA planting zones of 3 to 9, Elderberry bushes are fantastically adaptable and versatile! Growing 8-10 feet tall and a bit wider, you can transform these larger shrubs into small tree-forms, or be pruned as small as possible to conform to your smaller property or courtyard!

Planting and Application:

Like a shiny new penny, the Golden Elder will look outstanding in your yard as a shrub border or grouped in a naturalized area as a covert edible landscaping plant! Your Golden Elderberry is lovely even when not in bloom or in fruit! A single shrub becomes a beacon and mass plantings become wildlife habitat, songbird shelterbelts, and showy informal hedges - Without the wait!

These vivid golden shrubs are wonderful specimens that brighten the mood of the landscape! The verdant hue mixes with greens and chartreuse foliage colors, stands out against dark evergreens, and shines in the sun garden! Imagine what they can do for your home's foundation!

The Elderberry bushes' adaptability means introducing brilliant yellow color in Rain Gardens, natural wetlands, and waterfront properties, but alternately in Rock gardens, and hard-to-mow slopes, parched hell strips, and eroding hillsides alike!

You'll love the golden privacy or screening, vivid landscape backdrops, and bright colors! It will feel like you've suddenly gotten the Midas Touch! Gold-leafed Elderberry creates both a fantastic focal point and backdrop for you and your guests to look at as you sit on your porch, deck, or patio - in lanterns or decorative terra cotta pots! Use consistently throughout the landscape to tie the look together!

As fantastic in large planters as 'Thriller' accents as they are planted en masse for low-maintenance landscape filler, Elderberry bushes have you covered! For a solid hedge, space them out 2-3 feet on center. For a looser, more relaxed look, increase the spacing to 3-4 feet. Measure from the center of one to the center of the next.

Incorporate yellow and white flowering perennials and Roses, other chartreuse and variegated foliage plants, and like-hued plants like golden-leafed Spireas, Tiger Eyes® Sumac, Fall Gold Raspberry Bushes, Golden Vicary Privet or other equally brilliant flowering shrubs!

• Decorative Golden Green Foliage
• Lovely Creamy White Flower Clusters
• Showy Red Fruit For Humans & Birds
• Incredible in Cut Flower Arrangements
• Pollinator-Friendly Birds
• Gilded Hedges, Focal Points, Specimen Trees & Container Accents

#ProPlantTips for Care:

The color of your Golden Elder foliage will be best if you plant it in full sun and these shrubs do their very best in moist, well-drained soils. Provide regular moisture access during their first year in your landscape, but once established can become pretty drought tolerant. Keep your shrubs stress-free by providing supplemental moisture during extended drought and heat, plus a 3-4 inch layer of mulch over their shallow root systems.

Keep it pruned for size, or allow it to grow to its full height and spread. Either way, you'll love the effortless good looks! Elderberry can take hard pruning, just remember to wait until after the flowers fade because Elderberry bloom on old wood. After the first year, cut it back down to 12 inches tall to develop a bushier plant. Every 3 years, you can hard prune to the ground in the spring to maintain its shape. To enjoy both flowers and fruit (that pruning unfortunately removes), it is recommended you instead renewal prune when dormant, removing 3-5 year-old canes back to the ground.

• Full Sun Shrubs
• Grows in Moist or Dry Conditions
• Any Well-Drained Soil
• Prune After Flowering/Blooms On Old Wood
• Easily Pruned to Any Size After Flowering
• Fast-Growing & Hardy

Overall, the Golden Elder Elderberry is a hardy shrub with a lot of ornamental interest, but requiring little or no care yet shines with a natural beauty all on its own! Order this fast-growing shrub today at Nature Hills Nursery!