Blue Elderberry Seeds (Sambucus cerulea)

The western cousin. Bigger berries, bluer fruit, and the same extraordinary wildlife value.

Sambucus nigra ssp. cerulea, the Blue Elderberry, is the western counterpart of the American Black Elderberry, a fast-growing native shrub of the Pacific Coast and Rocky Mountain region that produces heavy clusters of blue-black berries with a distinctive silvery waxy bloom that gives the fruit its blue appearance. Like its eastern relative, it is one of the most productive and wildlife-supportive native shrubs you can plant, attracting pollinators during its white flower clusters in early summer and feeding dozens of bird and mammal species when the berries ripen in late summer and fall. It is also edible for humans, used for syrup, wine, jelly, and juice in the same ways as the eastern species. If you are looking to buy Blue Elderberry seeds or grow western elderberry from seed, this is the native shrub that does more per square foot than almost anything else in a western garden.

• Heavy clusters of blue-black berries with silvery waxy bloom, distinctive and beautiful in late summer
• White flower clusters in early summer attract native bees, wasps, beetles, and butterflies
• Berries eaten by over 40 bird species and important mammals across the Pacific Coast and Rocky Mountain region
• Fast-growing native shrub beginning to fruit within 2 to 3 years of planting
• Used for elderberry syrup, wine, jelly, and juice in the same tradition as the eastern species

Things you probably did not know about the Blue Elderberry

It was one of the most important plants in the material culture of Pacific Coast Indigenous peoples. The Blue Elderberry was used for food, medicine, and tools by virtually every Indigenous nation across its range from British Columbia to Baja California. The hollow stems were made into flutes and clappers for ceremonial music. The fruit was dried for winter food. The bark and flowers were used medicinally. Few plants were as fully integrated into daily and ceremonial life across the Pacific Coast culture area.

The waxy bloom is edible and was used as a food coloring. The blue-white waxy coating on Blue Elderberry fruits, called pruinose bloom, is the same compound found on plums, grapes, and blueberries. It is perfectly edible and was used by Indigenous peoples to create a light blue-gray food coloring for ceremonial foods. The bloom intensifies in dry conditions and fades in wet ones, making fruit appearance highly variable between seasons.

It can reach 20 feet in a single year under ideal conditions. Blue Elderberry is among the fastest-establishing native shrubs in western North America. In moist, fertile soils with adequate water, young plants can produce extraordinary first-year growth. This speed is part of why it is used in restoration plantings along disturbed riparian corridors across the Pacific Coast states.

The flowers are used in cuisine as well as the berries. Elderflowers harvested before they fully open have a delicate muscat fragrance and are used to make elderflower cordial, fritters, tempura, and sparkling wine. The Blue Elderberry flower clusters are slightly larger than those of the eastern species and produce the same fragrant, culinary-quality blossoms that have made elderflower one of the most fashionable culinary ingredients in the past decade.

Growing Details

• Botanical Name: Sambucus nigra ssp. cerulea
• Stratification: Required, 60 to 90 days cold moist stratification
• USDA Zones: 4 to 9
• Soil: Adaptable, prefers moist, fertile soil but tolerates a range of conditions
• Light: Full sun to partial shade
• Height: 10 to 25 feet
• Spread: 8 to 15 feet, spreads by root suckers
• Growth Rate: Fast, 3 to 6 feet per year in ideal conditions

Plant it near water if you have it or in any moist, sunny spot and harvest the flowers in June and the berries in August. Very few plants on a property will be more productive or more visited.