Is elder any use for anything at all?

Stuckfast

I spent a happy couple of hours wrestling with a fuck off elder tree in the garden today, and started wondering whether the mature wood is useful for anything. It's strange because the new branches are very light and soft, but the trunk wood is heavy and seems pretty hard. And it has a built-in truss rod channel down the middle...

Jazzthat

You won't know untill you strip a pylon down  and stick all  the wires on that dizzy trunk
!

Lebarque

Wands

Roland

The only use I’ve found for an elder tree is wine making. The wood is weak, particularly around that central pith channel. It doesn’t cut well, and the grain is not pretty. It doesn’t even make good firewood.

CasperCaster

What @Roland said. Farmers typically hate it. Obviously the large trees look quite substantial, but if it seeds into a hedge and gets estaished they usually pull it out, since it is weak and relatively easy for livestock to break break down. The flowers and berries are the only things of use.