A living laboratory for a sustainable human future.

Elderberries with Lyndon at Earthaven Ecovillage

(Transcript from video)

Elderberry Mother Plant and Rootings

Lyndon: Hello everyone. This is a rooting that we did from a plant called the Magnolia Elderberry. It has nothing to do with magnolia plant. It’s just a variety name. We keep them in water for a while and change out the water two or three times a week. It’s the easy way to germinate roots and then we change up the water three times a week. Keep them in a bucket then they grow roots. You see the amazing little white thingies? Those are the roots… then go back in the bucket. After they get roots we put them in pots and we grow them up.

We sell the plants. The thing about elderberries is they make these amazing berries that are really good for medicinal purposes, especially colds and stuff like that. You have to have two different kinds of elderberries. We have this very vigorous growing Magnolia Elderberry and we have the Nova. Somewhere around here we have a Medicine Wheel which comes from Earthaven but we don’t have it in this group.

I can take you over here and show you the actual mother plant those Magnolia Elderberries came from. This is the Magnolia Elderberry it was planted out of a pot around 2018.. it was about the spring of 2018. It was about this tall coming out of the pot. We planted it here in the ground and it’s to thicken off. I was like is this an unusual elderberry. Kind of a lot of them grow to this height but most are a little taller this. I measured it one day we got up here with a ladder. It’s got up to 11 and a half feet, I think it’s that was last fall,  I think maybe it’s even taller but it is an elderberry that came from the Piedmont. Either Chuck Marsh or Debbie Lienhart brought from the Piedmont probably a similar way.

Elderberry at Useful Plants Nursery

Courtney Brooke: Where can we get some elderberries like this?

Lyndon: At Useful Plants Nursery. We sell them Useful Plant Nursery in fact, which is where we are. But we take our plants on the road. We’re gonna take them to the herb fest, which is going to be May 1st and 2nd this year at the Ag center. If you’re going to the airport (Asheville airport) you go down the road a little farther and the Ag center is on the right.

Courtney Brooke: Okay get your elderberries… make elderberry syrup…  UPN (Useful Plants Nursery)

Elderberry (Sambucus canadensis)

elderberries, elderberry, lyndon, medicinal, Useful, useful plants nursery


Courtney Brooke

Courtney Brooke (she/her) is an ancestor who was a Social Ecologist, Regenerative Designer, and educator whose work aims to reconnect people with a sense of belonging to place. Her work in the world aims to address the root cause of today’s overwhelming ecological challenges – that humans are starved of a sense of belonging to the places they live. Courtney Brooke was raised on a small farm in North Georgia, and has been guided by a lifetime of living close to the land. Her greatest teachers have been the Appalachian Mountains, the land of Aotearoa, and Selu, the Corn Mother. She holds a degree in Ecology from the Odum School of Ecology, University of Georgia, and has 10 years of experience facilitating earth-based education, ecological landscape design, women’s rites of passage, and cultural healing. Courtney Brooke has taught and facilitated environmental education curriculum, Deep Ecology, Permaculture Design Courses, hands-on craft and farming workshops, and Holistic Management to a wide range of audiences in nine countries from toddlers to adults and everyone in between. Deeply committed to spreading the healing that comes from belonging to the places we live, Courtney Brooke is passionate about designing learning opportunities that celebrate life. She lives at Earthaven Ecovillage where she tends the land, raises food, participates in communal ritual agriculture, swims in wild water, enjoys the mysterious blessing of being alive, and tends her own wild Hearth. She loves cooking home-grown and wild foraged foods, playing her flute to the sunrise, running on mountain trails, making compost piles, crafting from natural materials, and bringing people together to create beauty that feeds the holy.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Get an inside look at THREE Earthaven Ecovillage homes.

Sign up for the newsletter and get an exclusive video tour.

* indicates required

Upcoming Events

Virtual Earthaven Tour

Recording available now

There’s nothing like experiencing ecovillage life first hand, but taking a virtual tour of Earthaven is a close second! 

The tour highlights ways in which Earthaven is striving to be a holistic, sustainable culture. The introductory overview tour examines the concept of sustainability at Earthaven through social, ecological, and economic lenses. Not only will you get a glimpse of what has worked through time, but also hear about what has been challenging. And you will have a chance to ask questions!

Earthaven Ecovillage Experience Weekend

May 25-28, 2023

Do you want to learn skills, gain insights and get to know the Earthaven community? Get an inside look at the radical social and ecological experimentation that has taken place in this land-based community for over 27 years.

Compassion Camp

July 13-16

Our annual event focused on Nonviolent Communication, featuring classes and experiential learning. An experience designed to foster compassion and connection in our hearts, communities and world, and to spread the seeds of justice and love.

Earthaven Ecovillage Experience Week

July 30 – August 5, 2023

Join the homesteads, farms, and businesses of Earthaven Ecovillage for a hands-on, skill-building immersion in sustainable and climate-resilient community life. A residential service learning immersion in our unique community laboratory.