Fran Higham wrote:

"Tara Deen" wrote in message

Fran (and sorry for not replying sooner, it's a mad time) does this mean
that I should be very worried that I've planted it only a few metres
from my house?

If by "it", you mean an Elder then no it won't be a problem so close to the
house. They tend to just put out lots of spindlyish (6 ft high) suckers
that (in my garden, where it lives in an extremely dry spot) dry off at the
end of the season and are good kindling the next spring. The blasted thing
just won't die though.

Good. That's actually the exact behaviour I'm hoping it'll exhibit. I
want it to take the brunt of the evening summer sun, die off in winter
to let the sun in (the windows are the breakfast nook attached to my
kitchen) and be unkillable, as it'll be backing a brick wall as well.
The rest of that garden is shrubs indigenous to my area.

The trouble is to catch it at the right time to do it. I dream of it too
but have never managed yet to get to the flowers when they are just right.
However, if I did get to it at the right time, its suckering habit would be
a bonus because of all the flower heads.l

I can never resist a challenge....

Oh, to update on my garden dilemma. I chose the easiest route: keep one
garden bed (with all my new fruit trees in it) alive through summer and
just let the rest of the back yard dry out until the drought is over.
The front garden is all natives with a tiny patch of lawn, and they're
happy with very little watering, even now. Next autumn, I'm going to use
indigenous plants in the backyard to make up for the loss of bush in my
area, and get the veg in around those.

Tara