A Gardeners Forum Forums Gardening Reference Gardening in 2006 Lilacs

I have 2 rather small lilac plants on the side of my house. They were planted near a very large elm tree which shaded them the vast majority of the day. I've been here 3 years and have not seen the lilacs bloom. Anyway, we had to cut down the tree and I was wondering if the lilacs were going to be okay getting full sun now? If not, can I transplant them elsewhere? Also, how drought tolerant are lilacs?? Thanks,

Sarah

I'm not sure, but I think if the trees are still green they will start to bloom with full sunlight.

Lilacs

Hope this helps.

Oh yes, full sun is okay, in fact I think
they bloom better in full sun...
*I have two of them, the one in full sun,
gets more blooms.*

How old were they when you planted them???

I never water mine...
My hose doesn't go that far...

Hi Sarah!

I had two lilac bushes for years. One was in the back yard in full sun, and it bloomed profusely all the years I lived there. The other one, in the shaded front yard, was much smaller and hardly ever bloomed. I never watered either of them.

I didn't plant the lilacs, they were here when we moved in 3 1/2 years ago. When we moved in they were probably around 3 feet tall. They are now around 3 1/2 feet tall...haven't done much growing or blooming!! I water them every once-in-a-great-while and was afraid maybe lack of water was causing them to be small and un-bloomed. Do they bloom only in the spring or can I expect some pretty blooms later??? I wonder what color they are supposed to be... hopefully purple!!

Thanks,
Sarah

Okay, did you prune them at all??

Or cut off any of the flowers that did bloom???

Nope, they only bloom in the spring time..

And they bloom from the last years growth..

example.. right now they'd be blooming...
then when they are done, you would clip them off..
then what grows then, is where it blooms from next spring...

If you don't cut/prune them, it doesn't encourage much new growth..
If you cut/pruned them too late, what you do is cut off those next year blooms.
And no sun is a big factor for them...

I've am not sure if I ever pruned them. Do I need to go do some pruning now?? I think I may have pruned them my first year here but I would have pruned them in February--same time as my rose of sharons. SO they definately haven't been pruned for 2 years.

Sarah

Feb is definately the wrong time to prune lilac's..

ROS yes, lilac's no...

Okay... now, have other lilac's bloomed in your area already, or just now??

Mine here are just in full bloom now, so it would be a bit for us here, your area/growing zone maybe ahead of us here...

Check the neighborhood if you're not sure...

The time to prune them is just after flowering...
and the flower is done, and maybe brown..

growing up we had a huge area of lilacs over our septic tank, in full sun. They bloomed like crazy every year and we never pruned them. I loved spring time because those lilacs were outside my bedroom window, I went to sleep with the smell of them and woke up to the smell of them. Probably why I love the smell of lilacs so much to this day!

Could they possibly be the dwarf variety lilac? I have two dwarf bushes and they are about 3 to 3.5ft. tall....they are in mostly shade with only a couple hours of sunlight per day ...this year, they have bloomed just beautifully!...you do have to be careful how you prune them though...if you hack them off with an electric type trimmer, like I did the summer before last you will kill the new buds for the following year and yes, I didn't have lilacs last spring because of my hack job with the electric trimer...oh, well, live and learn...

prune them right after the flowers have died off, and remove dead flowers at their base...and you want to prune dead stalks at the center of the bush, this improves cirulation and makes room for new shoots...you also want to trim back any branches that look wayward to you....

I think that the lilacs in the area bloomed a month or more ago. In fact, I went and looked and found one itty-bitty browned flower on the backside of one of my bushes. So I will try to head out there tomorrow and do some gentle pruning. The bush is very...crowded in the center so I'll try to prune to improve circulation.

And I wouldn't know a dwarf lilac if it bit me.

Can I make more bushes from the ones I have?? How do I do that, if I can? Can that be done with most plants? I've got some dahlias that I'd like to make more of too... I think it's called cutting/clipping or something, I think.

Sarah

There are several ways of making more lilac's..

Probably the easiest, is to take a sucker from below the plant.. *it would travel under ground and come out a bit from the momma shrub..
~could be trick to find one, if you lawn mow or weed whack right up to the base..*

Shovel a spade thru the dirt, under the sucker, and replant or repot..
It can take a bit to reflower though..
*I have two done that way and they are gorgeous, but had to wait a bunnnnnnnnnnch of years for them to flower*

or you can get yourself a nifty gizmo like this...
Lee Valley Tools, Propagation Pots
You can clip those right on to the bush now and do it..
*or you can be ingenuitous and put some peat moss, in a halfed zip lock baggie, cut off some of leaves, half cut thru the limb, and maybe slip in a bit of root tone *a rooting hormone*, cover the baggie over the wound and ductape it closed, wait a few weeks and it should work...*

You can try layering, where you take a branch, and strip a few of the leaves and then put it down on the ground, *still attached to momma plant* and put something heavy on top of that branch for two reasons', to hold it down and to give it good contact to the ground for it to root...

Those propagation pots look really cool!! I think I'll try your zip lock baggie trick first, sounds like something I might be able to get my children involved in... I'm going to need a few projects to keep them busy this summer!

Sarah

Sarah,
If it's a dwarf, it won't grow more than 4ft. tall..thats how you know