Project 365 day 173: Black Elder

I think this is Sambucus Nigra Black Beauty. It's a dark purple leaved elder with heads of delicate, pink flowers and I was pleased to find it beautiful as ever in my neighbour's garden this morning, despite the recent battering by wind and heavy rain. I'm told the flowers make very pretty pink cordial, though if this were mine I don't think I would want to pick them I seem to be slipping back into the former routine of weekly coffee with C, which is nice after such a long period of limited contact. I found him on his knees on the wet ground, weeding his raspberry bed and despairing at the impossibility of keeping up with the weeds. He normally removes every weed as soon as he sees it, and there probably are rather too many for that approach at present, but by most people's standards it is still a wonderfully well tended and very productive garden. He's in his nineties and doesn't get back up as easily as he used to even a few years ago, but he doesn't let that deter him. It was just warm enough to us to sit on his lawn, and we chatted about our beans, potatoes and squashes; I had just cut up one of his last year's Crown Prince squashes for P to make into soup for lunch, still perfect eight months after harvest. C offered unlimited lovage from his forest of two metre high plants, which he doesn't use, so I returned with a box and scissors and picked enough to fill the dehydrator at least three times. I've also stewed lots more rhubarb today, to put in tubs and freeze for winter crumbles. 

The extra is a detail of one of C's pelargoniums. It's tinier than the elder for Tiny Tuesday's pink week, but I prefer the elder photo and hope the little florets are small enough to qualify.