Elderberries? Currants? Can these be grown in Houston?

I really, really miss making elderberry and currant jelly. Haven't made them in years. I used to get elderberries from a friend and her neighbor (who each lived on 16 acres of land) every year and made a slew of elderberry jelly. And my mom used to have currant bushes growing on her 2 acres of land. But that was in the Chicago area, and I haven't even tried to grow either of them here.

Does anyone know if it's even possible? I know blueberries grow here (one of these years I'll go pick some at the King's Orchard with my grandkids - when they're a bit older - unless I can find room in my backyard for a couple of bushes).

Thanks for your help!

I grow Elderberries here in zone 8a and the do great, they are almost evergreen.
I used to make elderberry jam too, and I think it is my most favorite, but since we turned our yard into a native habitat the birds get all the berries, but that is o.k. I shouldn't have that much sugar.
Anyway, I think they will grow in Houston just as well.
Good luck and have fun with them.
Josephine.

crOak,

I am pretty sure red or black currants don't grow south of the Mason/Dixion line. Red currant is native of northern Europe. I used to eat them off the bush when I lived in MN, even saw a few down in Iowa. I know you can't grow them in Austin, I tried many years ago.

I grow Mango now>

This message was edited Nov 20, 2008 5:53 PM

Dale, those are some mighty fine mangoes, I am jealous, I love them too.

I used to make elderberry and Staghorn Sumac berry jelly. The combination makes a great jelly. If you grow a plant or two of the sumac in a confined area (to keep it from spreading), you'd also get good fall color.

Elderberries do great here in San Antonio which is Zone 8B.

A bit south of halfway between Dallas and Houston and elderberries grow wild in the ditches. I always watch the blooms and forget by the time the berries are ripe enough. One of these years.....

Frostweed - I don't mind if the birds get some of the berries, as long as I have enough to make a batch of jelly! I have somewhat of a habitat garden (but mostly for butterflies, since I have four bird feeders out).

Dale - Gorgeous mango! I guess I'll just have to find something else to grow instead of currants - and get store-bought currant jelly (although it's never as good as homemade). Chalk up another "northern" plant that doesn't grow here (like peonies, lilacs, lily of the valley, and Colorado Blue Spruce). ;) I sometimes get homesick for those things, although I do get to see them occasionally when we go back up to visit relatives.

BettyDee - I don't think I'd want a plant that's not very controllable. I'm still fighting a crepe myrtle that we cut down but didn't get all of the root system. It keeps sending shoots up all over the yard (which get whacked by the lawnmower), but now it's invaded a couple of my garden areas. Bleh. I'm going to have my husband take an axe to the buried root system. Or drill the roots and then dump weed killer in the holes. (I did that with the neighbor's invading Chinese Tallow Tree - drilled holes in the roots that were invading our yard, then poured weed killer into the holes. That did the trick!)

podster - For as many times as we've done the drive between Houston and Dallas, I never noticed the elderberries! Maybe we just didn't go at the right time. (And, of course, when you're driving 70 mph, it's hard to identify much of anything!) LOL

My plans (right now) are to re-landscape my back yard. I'll be taking out most of the unproductive stuff (like the variegated pittosporum) and replace with plants/shrubs that produce edible fruits/nuts. I'm going to keep my bamboo, though, because it's useful. Of course, I'll still have things like the milkweed plants (for the monarchs and also to attract the aphids - which will attract the ladybugs), and my Confederate Rose Hibiscus because it's just too gorgeous a plant to get rid of. Hurricane Ike did some major damage to our Drummond Maple and we've been trying to decide whether or not we should just take the whole thing down. I think we will - and replace it with a pecan tree.

Thanks to all of you for the responses!

crOak,

The missed plants of 'up north' should also include Poplar (aspen), Sugar Maple, Lilies, Apple Trees. Oriental Poppies, Pines........

And rhubarb, fall ripened apples... on and on! LOL You aren't the only displaced northerner. I must admit, I made an adjustment over the years by learning to love all things southern. Okra, purple hull peas, hard pears, etc. I wouldn't sacrifice any of that just to go north again. Yuck! I intensely dislike the cold. I love the longer growing seasons, the spring and fall gardens, the gorgeous spring and fall days that I wish could go on forever. When we go north for a summer visit, the one thing I like is the intense flower colors and I always savor the length of those summer days. OTOH, the short days of winter would make me surly. LOL

I love the idea of your backyard and will enjoy following your progress. BTW, not sure how far west the elderberries grow. I am almost on the LA border. If I ever remember to catch elderberry picking time, I'll invite you and we'll have a picking party. Do you have a favorite recipe?

cr0ak, I sure hope your bamboo is the clumping form and not the "running" form.

Dale - I really do miss the oriental poppies, too. And the wild flowers - like trillium, jack-in-the-pulpit, etc. I do not miss pine trees! (except the Blue Spruce). My neighbor behind me has over a dozen of them planted along our back fence. I HATE them! They're continually dropping needles and pine cones, and they shade too much of my yard. I'm seriously thinking of doing some major branch-whacking when I re-landscape. Everything hanging over the fence gets lopped off! LOL I think they're loblolly pines?

However, I agree with podster - I LOVE the longer growing seasons, the gorgeous fields of bluebonnets in spring, and definitely I do NOT miss the cold! I only miss the snow on Christmas Day (when we would sit in Momma's living room in front of the fire and look out her big picture window watching the snow come down - and everything looked like a winter wonderland). BUT - to have to go out and shovel it, or drive in it - or deal with that dang road salt that would get all over everything? And come January with the below zero temps, and the grey days of winter? NO THANKS! LOL

The photo is a shot that I took about a month or so ago when we drove up north. It's taken in front of Lucent Technologies (in Naperville, IL). The pic doesn't really do justice to the gorgeous colors of the leaves, but...


"Meant to ask... useful in what manner please?"

Podster - I harvest it and use it for stakes, trellises, etc. :) It gets expensive to buy bamboo stakes! (And sometimes the ones at the store just aren't long enough for what I need.) No... no favorite recipe for the elderberries. Just that I love elderberry jelly, especially on a certain cookie that I make for Christmas. (It's a sandwich cookie made of ground filberts with the jelly as the filling between the two cookies.) And, of course, I love elderberry syrup on my pancakes and French toast! :)


"cr0ak, I sure hope your bamboo is the clumping form and not the "running" form."

Htop - yes! I'm not sure which variety it is (I lost the tag years ago), but it's a green and white striped, clumping. The birds love it, too. (Another reason that I'll keep it. ;) )

Brrrr! Your description of a northern winter sounds way too familiar.

If I may suggest, the pine needles can be as useful as your bamboo crop is. I like to use pine straw for mulching plants. It insulates well yet allows water to get thru to the soil and plants. Some gardeners pay big money for pinestraw! 8 )

I also learned something interesting a few years ago. If you seriously want to prune some of those limbs up a bit, spray with roundup. Even a big limb will slough off in a year. It won't harm the tree unless the roundup reaches the top of the tree. It works from the top or tip down. At work, the neighboring property had pine limbs so low to the ground we couldn't mow under them. A friend came by with his sprayer and sprayed. Amazingly how well it pruned the offending limbs. The trees are still large and gorgeous.

I pay $6 a bale for pine straw that I use. Or course I am not paying for it, the clients are...

podster - Thanks for the suggestion about Roundup, but I don't use any chemicals in/around my yard. Two reasons: 1.) I'm boycotting Monsanto (the manufacturer of RoundUp and other things), 2.) I have a non-Hodgkins Lymphoma. Have been fighting it for over three years now. I'm currently at stage 4 (after going through 8 rounds of RCHOP and being told I was "cured", it came back a little over a year after my last chemo treatment. I now have tumors in my lungs. However, I've been doing alternative treatment at the Burzynski clinic and the tumors have been reduced in size by 33% over the past year. Hopefully, with the new drug I'm on, along with more Rituxan, I'll be able to say that I really AM cured within the next 6 months!) :)

I know the pine straw can be a good mulch. The problem is that someone has to rake up the needles - and when it's 95+ degrees outside, it's not worth doing. I don't have the energy to do it, and my husband *won't* do it. (He just runs over them with the lawnmower.) Every fall we rake up the leaves from the two trees we have in the back yard and the one in the front yard. I have a leaf shredder and we put the leaves through that and bag it. It comes in very handy for mulching my veggie garden. The neighbor has her yard done by a cleaning crew and after they've bagged up all the leaves I go over and heist the bags and we shred those, too. LOL Another neighbor has a slew of pine trees in their front yard, but there again, someone would have to rake them up.

Bless you ! I understand that... Best wishes with the new drug. I must say I wait till fall and cooler on harvesting the pinestraw. I wait till good soaking rains and then apply it in spring to retain moisture too.

"Best wishes with the new drug."

Thanks! :)

I'll try to remember about applying any pine straw in the spring when it's wet!

cr0ak, my daughter just finished her last round of chemo ... a most terrible thing to have to go through. I hope the new drug continues to shrink the tumors. This may sound strange to you: however, you may want to eat lots of lemons. They increase the alkalinity in your body and may help decrease the size of the tumors that thrive in acidity. A friend of mine had a type of cancer that could not be killed with chemo. I believe it was mesotheleoma (not in her lungs - in her body cavity and attached to organs). She had to have them surgically removed. More tumors kept appearing and more surgeries followed. At the last count, she had 42 tumors that needed to be removed and her future looked pretty dim. She visited a health food store that had a man who knew a lot about holistic medicine. Among the things he told her to eat was lemons. She ate lemons every day. The tumors totally disappeared (don't remember how many months it took). The doctors thought a miracle had occurred. It has been 9 years (she still eats lots of lemons) and the tumors have not reappeared. It was too late for my daughter to try lemons. You might want to add lemons to your diet.

A miracle!!! Why oh why ~ can't the medical field open up their minds to other avenues of treatment! What works for one may not for the next but it will never work if it isn't tried. I need to learn more about the acidity/alkalinity in our systems. I have heard something similar before.

Htop ~ blessings and prayers for your daughter and her loved ones. That is difficult to go thru...

podster, my friend's daughter used the treatment of her mom's cancer by changing her body's ph level as a science project that continued for months and won first place. My daughter has been struggling since before Easter and has had a double mastectomy. Because of other long standing medical problems that effect her body's reaction to the chemo, she has experienced some awful side effects. She tried to go back to work on the 17th, but could not handle it yet. I have been on "pause" due to worry and not being able to do anything to help her; but , I am now able to start 'getting out in the world" again because her chemo is over. Her breast reconstruction was stopped due to problems and she will start more procedures to "feel whole" again in January. Thank you for your blessings and prayers. Please pray for all who have cancer.

I have one elderberry that came up in my yard. It blooms but doesn't make berries...maybe because there's no other elderberries out in this area for pollination? I may have to get another one for pollination one of these days...I assume a "sprout" from mine might not be good for pollination? I think it came up from one of the berries I made elderberry tea with in the past and then put in the compost pile. In the days I used to visit Houston, I've seen the elderberries growing wild there....even spotted some blooming while I was driving along the highway...I have eyes trained for native plants! Sorry about your daugher, Hazel. I'll pray for her recovery. Along with the pH thing, decreasing the amount of sugar consumed to as little as possible is important.

Linda, I dig the runners up each year, I'll save you a well-rooted piece if you want one or maybe even two. Near what town in Medina County do you live? Thanks for your concern about my daughte and your advice. She is now eating only natural food products and using raw sugar in limited quantities when she feels like eating.

Hazel, I remember you mentioning your daughter's breast cancer a while back. I am so happy to hear that chemo is over for your daughter. I pray she remains cancer free. My mother celebrated her 10th anniversary of being cancer from after her bout with breast cancer.

I have a question about eating lemons. Lemon juice is acidic. How does it raise the pH of the body to make it more alkaline?

Hazel, I live about 6 miles NE of Lakehills. I would like to have another elderberry...maybe if I did, I'd get some berries on mine. I just never thought about the that much until recently. I know some plants need cross-pollination and some don't. Well, lemons are definitely acidic...and yet it's listed as an alkalinizing food. It must change when digested.

bettydee, thanks. I asked my friend about the lemons increasing alkalinity and she said they do even though they are acidic. I am not sure how this is achieved and will research it a bit.

LindaTX8, my brother owns a house and lakefront property in Lakehills. I go there often. I will let you know when I am going again so I can give them to you.