Hi!
Hope you can help with my beautiful little shrub. It was doing very well until the last month or so.
The plant has multiple trunks coming out of the ground. Right now, whatever is wrong seems to be affecting only the little trunks in the front.
The foliage on the thicker back trunk looks ok.
In the last few weeks, the leaves on the lower branches of the front trunk are turning brown and the branches are drooping. Whatever is wrong, started at the bottom and is working its way up. As of today, the leaves on the top branch of this front trunk is showing some brown.
We have been having unusual weather in NE Ohio. It rained steadily for 6 days or so, then then had no rain for several weeks. I have recently installed soaker hoses, but haven't turned them this shrub for a couple of weeks.
I don't know if this is relevant, but I bough a magnolia from the same nursery on the same date. It died also. However, it started to grow in the early spring and even had a flower on it and then it died. We did have unseasonably warm weather and the extreme cold.
Thank you for any help you can give me!
Terrie

Did you add extra soil or compost above the nursery pot soil line? It looks to be planted very deep.

There is a root/collar problem but I have never purposely planted an elderberry, they grow wild here. But they also don't get watered except by winter rains.

Sorry, not much help but my comments will bounce your post back to the top.

Hello, I want to bump your thread too. I planted quite a few berry bushes a year ago in the spring of '22. Serviceberry, silverberry , goji berry, some currents and a 'Black Lace Elderberry'. We have really hot summers here and some screaming hot summers. Last summer was hot and all the plants were happy where I put them. The elderberry and currents are in dappled shade/sun all day and everything did well.
This year is a screaming hot summer. They were all having issues. So I paid attention. Some needed more water, one needed less water, some just needed it to cool down, which it did for 2 weeks. As soon as the temps went back to the 90s they bounced right back.
All but the elderberry. On mine, at first, just the very tips of the leaves on a few branches turned brown and then the whole leaf turned brown and dropped off. The rest of the branches were fine. I tried giving it more water but they continued to turn brown and die. I tried less water, same thing happened. Finally, a month ago I began giving it just a little water every day, not skipping any days and now it seems very happy. Problem solved. Or is it? It's screaming hot again and the plant is fine so was that the problem? Is it just very finicky about it's watering schedule? Inquiring minds would love to know. Thanks for posting this and happy gardening.