My gardening history is littered with "it seemed like a good idea at the time" moments - one of those is the Elderberry I bought as a tiny green sprig in a 6 inch pot, five years ago at a regular Leura School Market Day.
I'm not sure what I was thinking at the time - was I contemplating some herbal use of its flowers or berries, perhaps? Was it nostalgia for something that had grown in other gardens I had known, decades before, such as the family farm, or my grandfather's place? Or was it simply the idea of those lovely, creamy, bee-filled, elderflower panicles?
Where ever there is a bright spot, there are likely to be shadows nearby - elderberry may look good above the ground, but beneath...... that is a different matter. While the brittle branches slowly spread out to display their delicate leaves and lacework flower clusters, just below the mulch and soil, a vast net of rubbery tentacles is reaching out far beyond the dripline of the parent tree, seeking dominion over all the garden.
It is only when you disturb the ground around other plants, many meters away, that you discover how far elderberry roots reach out from the trunk, and how easily new trees spring up if any of those roots are in any way nicked or cut.
As I contemplate the effort that may be needed to eliminate the tree and all its suckers, I suddenly feel a tiny inkling of what some of the early Britons felt when they realised that the Saxons they had foolishly invited to their island had no intention of leaving.
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