Black Lace Sambucus

Wow! Do I love this plant. It is everything that I heard about it. Last fall, I bought three of these plants for a small island bed in our yard. I heard about its beautiful burgundy lace like foliage and was told that the flowers were insignificant. It was the foliage that resembled a cut leaf variety of Japanese Maple that sold me. What stopped me from buying it was that I read it was a deer magnet. Yet, I still dreamed of having it. It is the gardener, or really plant lover, in me.

We planted them in the new bed last fall and sprayed the plants with LiquidFence, hoping they would survive the hungry winter deer. Deer are a real probem in our yard. They will pass up a field of wheat, soybeans, and corn to feast on a buffet in our yard. We have also used Deer Scram and had success with it as well. We did find that we really do need to switch, from time to time, what we use. The deer have proven to outsmart us at times. I have a beautiful Blue Muffin Viburnum that I planted four years ago in another bed. This year, it is finally twice the size it was when I purchased it. Every year, the deer have chowed down on it, so I have never had any of the beautiful blue berries. Well, this year, my husband sprayed Liquid Fence on it. Well, there was one area the deer missed and they got to it again, but did not do a great deal of damage. Most of the spent flower stalks are still there, so we are hoping for the blue berries this fall.