Prefers a fertile soil in full sun, but is easily grown in any soil of at least moderate quality so long as it is well drained. Succeeds in a hot dry position. Established plants are drought resistant. Fairly wind-tolerant. This species, or at least some of its cultivars, is resistant to 'Dutch elm disease', a disease that has destroyed the greater part of all the elm trees growing in Britain. The disease is spread by means of beetles. There is no effective cure (1992) for the problem, but most E. Asian, though not Himalayan, species are resistant (though not immune) to the disease so the potential exists to use these resistant species to develop new resistant hybrids with the native species. The various species of this genus hybridize freely with each other and pollen is easily saved, so even those species with different flowering times can be hybridized.

Leaves - raw or cooked. Used as a potherb. Inner bark - cooked. It can be dried and made into noodles. The dried inner bark can also be ground into a powder and then used as a thickener in soups or added to cereal flours when making bread etc. Fruit - raw or cooked. Used when immature, it can be made into a sauce and a wine. The fruit is about 10mm in diameter.

Seed - if sown in a cold frame as soon as it is ripe, it usually germinates within a few days. Stored seed does not germinate so well and should be sown in early spring. The seed can also be harvested 'green' (when it has fully developed but before it dries on the tree) and sown immediately in a cold frame. It should germinate very quickly and will produce a larger plant by the end of the growing season. When they are large enough to handle, prick the seedlings out into individual pots and grow them on in the greenhouse for their first winter. Plant them out into their permanent positions in late spring or early summer, after the last expected frosts. Plants should not be allowed to grow for more than two years in a nursery bed since they form a tap root and will then move badly. Layering of suckers or coppiced shoots.

Dry sandy or stony soils, pebbles of river valleys, slopes and occasionally on rocks.