Elder Trees in Cumbria — Folklore, Uses and When to Remove Them

Elder (Sambucus nigra) rarely gets much respect from gardeners or arborists. It is not a tree anyone plants deliberately, it is not the kind of plant that inspires admiration, and it has a habit of appearing in entirely inconvenient places including walls, gutters, the bases of fences and the foundations of buildings with a persistence that feels almost deliberate. We pull it out of stone walls across the Cartmel Peninsula and the limestone country around Kendal on a regular basis.

And yet elder has a genuinely interesting place in British natural and cultural history, a real wildlife value that is easy to underestimate, and a practical usefulness that has made it one of the most exploited wild plants in the British landscape for centuries. It is worth knowing a bit about it before dismissing it entirely.

Elder in Cumbrian Folklore and Tradition

Elder has an extraordinarily rich folklore tradition across Britain and particularly in the north of England. In Cumbrian farming tradition, elder was commonly planted near farmsteads and especially near dairy outbuildings, where it was believed to keep flies away from milk and to ward off evil influences. The old Norse communities who settled Cumbria brought with them a deep reverence for elder, and echoes of that tradition survived in rural communities across South Lakeland and the Eden Valley well into the twentieth century.

The belief that it was unlucky to cut elder without first asking the permission of the elder tree, or its spirit, was widespread across rural Cumbria. Whether you take that seriously or not, it has resulted in some very old elder plants being left standing in farmyards and hedgerows across the county where a more practically minded age might have removed them.

Elder flowers and berries have been used in food and drink across Cumbria for centuries. Elderflower cordial and elderberry wine are the most familiar modern uses, but historically the berries were used in preserves, the flowers were fried in batter as fritters, the bark was used medicinally, and the hollow stems were used to make bellows for encouraging fires.

Elder for Wildlife

Whatever its reputation among gardeners, elder is genuinely valuable for wildlife. The flat-topped white flower heads in June are excellent for a wide range of insects including hoverflies, beetles and bees, and the dark berries in late summer and autumn are an important food source for several bird species including blackbird, song thrush, blackcap and garden warbler. In a wet Cumbrian autumn, when other berries have been stripped, elder often remains available late into the season.

The hollow stems of elder provide nesting sites for several species of solitary bee, which use the soft pith as a nesting substrate. This is a small but genuinely useful contribution to pollinator habitat in garden settings.

When Elder Becomes a Problem

In a hedgerow or a corner of a large garden, elder is a valuable and relatively undemanding plant. In most other situations it needs managing. The specific problems we encounter most frequently are:

Elder self-seeding into stone walls and masonry. This is by far the most damaging thing elder does in the built environment of Cumbria. The seeds are deposited by birds into any available gap in stonework, germinate readily, and within two to three years have established a root system capable of causing significant damage to mortared joints and the integrity of old stone walls. The combination of elder and ivy in an old stone wall is particularly destructive. Removing elder from walls before the root system has grown large is straightforward and inexpensive. Removing it once it has been in place for five or more years, and repairing the associated damage to the wall, is considerably more involved.

Elder growing in gutters, downpipes and drainage features. Elder seed finding its way into blocked or half-blocked gutters and germinating there is surprisingly common. Again, early removal is simple. An established elder plant in a gutter will eventually block drainage and cause water to back up into the roof structure.

Elder competing in newly planted hedgerows and woodland. Elder is a vigorous early coloniser of open ground and hedgerow gaps, and if allowed to establish itself in competition with slower-growing native species such as hawthorn, hazel and blackthorn it can significantly suppress the development of the intended planting. Managing elder in the early years of a new hedgerow or woodland planting is an important establishment task that is often underestimated.

Removing Elder

Elder is easy to cut down but harder to kill. It resprouts vigorously from the root system following cutting, and repeated cutting without stump treatment will produce a cycle of regrowth that can go on for years. Where complete removal is needed, cutting should be followed by treatment of the cut stump with an approved herbicide, or alternatively repeated cutting of regrowth to exhaust the root system over two to three growing seasons.

We remove elder from buildings, walls, gardens and agricultural boundaries across Cumbria as part of our general tree and shrub clearance work. If you have elder established in a wall or causing a structural problem on your property, it is worth dealing with it sooner rather than later.

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Email: enquiries@maxreynoldstreeservices.com

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