'Golden Elder' Plants

Sambucus nigra Aurea: Golden Elder Plants

Sambucus nigra Aurea, is probably the best "native" golden leaved shrub.

Apart from the bight leaf colour and flaming-wavy leaf shape, it's functionally the same as the common elderflower, and it makes a tall, shrubby hedge all by itself.
It looks good as the low maintenance back of a border, filling up the edges of woodland, or as part of a windbreak.

We also grow Black Lace elder and wild elderflower, recommended for making elderflower cordial.
Browse our garden shrubs and hedging plants.

Delivery season: Elders are delivered bareroot during late autumn and winter, approximately November-March inclusive.

Features

• Rich yellow leaves
• Grows anywhere.
• Informal screening plant.
• Usually hard pruned for best new foliage
• Max. Height: 4m
• Pot Grown Delivery: Year round.
• Bareroot Delivery: Nov-Mar.

Growing Golden Elder

It'll grow pretty much anywhere. Elder's extreme flexibility and lack of fussiness are famous, but you will get the finest leaf colour with a decent amount of sun.

Pruning your shrubs back in spring keeps lush new foliage coming, which is the main attraction for most people. It also removes flowers and future fruit.

Hard prune in winter to tidy when required.

Spacing a Golden Elder hedge: Plant at 2-3 plants per metre, 33-50cm apart.

Wider spacing pays off because at either spacing, it's only a matter of time before they make a pretty solid wall.
It's aggressive and isn't recommended for a mixed country hedge: it spreads wide and leafs out over other plants, gradually bulldozing them. It'll never form a tidy, formal hedge.

History & Trivia

This variety was recorded in 1883, and there is a likelihood that it is the same plant as S. nigra aurea Dixonii.