Black Lace® Elderberry

Size

Shrubs with green leaves are nice, but a uniform shrub border can look like a green wall. The dark purple-black leaves of Black Lace Elderberry will create a dark spot in your yard or garden but in an attractive, not gloomy way. This deciduous shrub is covered with lacy foliage from spring into fall. It will create a statement in your landscape. This shrub produces numerous 10-inch-wide clusters of lemon-scented creamy-pink flowers. The flowers produce purple-black berries in the fall. The flowers and cooked fruit can be used for flavoring and are said to have medicinal benefits. The berries can also be used to make delicious jam or wine. This shrub can be used in mixed perennial borders, to create hedges or screens and as an accent plant in your garden. It can also be grown in a container but will need pruning to restrict its natural large size. Black Lace Elderberry Care In order for this shrub to produce berries, make sure to plant 1 other elderberry of this same species (Black Beauty®, Instant Karma®, or Laced Up) within 60 feet of this shrub to cross pollinate. Both shrubs will produce berries. Black Lace Sambucus nigra 'Eva' USPP 15,575 will grow to 6 to 8 feet tall and wide in an upright form at maturity in a full or partially sunny location. This fast-growing plant thrives in USDA hardiness zones 4 to 7 in moderately fertile, moist, well-drained soil. Its deer resistant but susceptible to aphid infestations and verticillium wilt disease. Birds and butterflies are attracted to Black Lace Elderberry blossoms. This plant will tolerate pruning to restrict its size. While not seen as invasive, this shrub will self-seed and form root suckers to form new plants. Prune suckers if naturalizing is not desired. This plant won the Award of Merit from the Royal Horticultural Society. Black Lace Elderberry Spacing Space multiple Black Lace Elderberry plants 7 feet apart on center. Plants can be spaced about 5 feet apart on center to create a denser hedge.