Elderberry trees for screening - experiment

Hi all

Just thought I'd see what you think about my experiment.

Next door to our house is a social club. Between us and them there is a wide alleyway which belongs to the club, and is blocked off by a metal gate so people don't go up and down it, but when the club goers come out for the smoke break between bingo rounds, they can see straight into parts of my back garden.

I wanted a cheap and easy way screen off the bit of the fence they can see straight through, so I came up with a plan.

As some of you may know, I have a seperate piece of land in the countryside, and part of my land is woodland. There are many elderberry trees on it, and more appear all the time (it is a weed really) so we have to remove the young trees from time to time in order to stop it getting too dense.

So I decided to kill two birds with one stone (I didn't kill any birds - figure of speech), and dug out some of the young elderberry trees, chopped most of the top growth off to make them easier to transport, and take the burden off the stressed roots, and planted them along my boundary at home.

There are already a couple of wild roses along the boundary, so I'm hoping it will all knit together and form an all native hedge.

My plan is, if the trees survive the trauma of being moved, I'm going to nip off the lead shoots from time to time, thus promoting the growth of side shoots and making it bush up. My goal is not to make a thick hedge, just enough to obscure the view a bit. I still want it to flower too, so will have to read up on how to clip it without affecting flowering, and because I don't want it to take up much space, I'm going to have to see if I can train it to the existing fence, rather than having it bush out, into the garden, ie so it covers the fence without coming in too much.

Has anyone else ever seen or heard of anything similar, using Elderberry trees?

Can anyone foresee any problems with my plan?

 

You are lucky to have any elderberry trees/bushes. All of the ones in this area appear to have died.

Last autumn I covered an area of approx 10 square miles to source elderberries from known growing spots, and in all, I only found one tree still alive. Even that didn't look healthy.

 

I would have earmarked those for transplanting whilst in bloom last year, choosing them based on having sweet smelling blooms suitable for making elderflower wine & cordial, and avoiding those bushes twith flowers that smell of cat pee.

 

good point, though I haven't noticed any that smell of cat pee. If it transpires that they do stink, then I'll introduce them to my mate RoundUp and nothing will be lost.

 

Thats odd, I have a mate called Roundup too! Your plan sounds like a good one to me. I wouldnt like folk looking into my garden either.

 

In my humble opinion the berries make far better wine than the flowers :-)