Sambucus Nigeria... Again... Pruning

I posted a thread last year about non flowering sambucus. This is it so far... Def more flowers appearing. Looking at the pic I have put up, is it ok to cut down the really tall stems now? I am just trying to keep it really compact, rather than it going tall and leggy. My garden is only small and I don't really want it to take over :-)

 

I wouldn't cut until after all the flowering and berrying is done. I leave mine until quite late and it seems happy enough.

 

If you cut after the berries are finished - end of Sept, maybe - then you will cut off most of the wood which will flower and berry next year. Looks like that might be what happened last year as you have flowers low down - on last year's wood, but only strong foliage high up on this year's fresh shoots. If you leave all those new shoots on till next June you will get fantastic flowering on them but a rather large plant.

I suggest pruning fairly lightly after flowering in early July if you want compactness but also flowers. The plant will be smaller but has then got time this summer to ripen some branches to flower next year. So, yes, you could remover some or all of those long stems now.

I don't think it's possible to have compactness+berries+flowers. You can only have certain combinations of two! The compensation is that if you prune hard you get fantastic lush giant foliage - as we can see in your photo.

 

I have a number of Black Lace. Originally bought 2 and now have around a dozen as very easy from cuttings. The 2 originals had grown HUGE and easily the size of your nice 1 Marymark. 1 had outgrown it's quarters so I pruned it to about 2ft in February so as to give it the best chance when moving it. Moved it and it's now smothered in flower buds much to my amazement. It will flower a little later than those I haven't hard pruned but honestly I've hacked at mine at all sorts of times and they still flower well. The rate of growth of Black Lace is considerable, much more than say Aurea which surprises me due to the leaf colour. I think many people with small gardens might be regretting buying this shrub as it is very vigorous. Great for the likes of me with a huge garden but no so good for others perhaps. With me it is verging on the thug!

 

When I bought mine I was told I can prune it hard the same as a buddleja. Mine is not big enough for that yet though.

 

I am going to post mine again soon as it is currently flowering and growing like crazy.