Lilacs

June 11, 2008

We got together with some friends recently for dinner and had a very rare gardening treat thrown in for good measure. Our hosts took us back through their property to an unused old school road used in the last century, now as a hiking trail. We were treated to old-fashioned lilacs. It was quite magical with the heady fragrance and color before us. In the thin soils next to the road, the shrubs were stunted but as the soil deepened, the shrubs got taller. This layering created a curtain of color and as the shrubs were invading the unused open meadows, this effect stretched back up the small hill. It was awesome. It was a lightly overcast day so the light was soft and I took many mental photographs. Having said that, I will be able to recall them on that cold day in January, when I only see bare stems on my lilacs.

My own garden is also surrounded with some old lilacs that came from my husband’s grandmother’s garden near Chicago. A bouquet of blooms graces every room in our home and I’m still enjoying the memories of that weekend’s dinner party. And what I know for sure is that I’ll be extending the planting of this wonderful shrub on my own property. Just like these old pioneer shrubs, our Lilac Syringa vulgaris is an adaptable plant. They grow best in full sunshine and indeed that is the only place the plant will flower reliably. If you have a plant that is not flowering, this is normally the reason. The soil, as I saw that weekend, was not an issue for this plant. Give it great soil or poor soil and it will still grow well. The only thing to understand is that if you feed it heavily, it will grow leaves at the expense of flowers. A shovel or two of compost is all it really requires.

These old shrubs never saw a pruning shear and mine are pruned to keep them from becoming too tall near the drive way. I prune off or deadhead the spent flowers. If you do, then do this within 2 weeks of the blooms finishing. The lilac is perfectly adaptable to making a small tree and this is what the overgrown plants will become over the next few years. I prune some of the taller branches and eliminate the suckers around the bases. It also makes a very fast growing hedge that can be grown into the wild hedge if you don’t prune every year. Or, it can be pruned and kept as a semi-formal flowering hedge. Because it is deciduous it will make a wonderful summer screen, it has few equals for speed and ease of growth, just a little mildew in the late summer.

One complaint I often hear is that newly established lilacs won’t bloom. They will bloom in the container in the nursery because they are root bound. But when you plant them outdoors, they’ll often take up to 3 years to establish roots and enough top growth so they’re comfortable in throwing a blossom. And when they start, they’ll bloom nonstop with relatively few pests or problems for the next century. The only reason they’ll stop blooming is if you change their sunshine levels with surrounding trees, late frosts or a very sever winter.

To get new lilacs from the old, dig up the suckers just before they start leafing out in the spring or just after the leaves had dropped in the fall. At these two times, the lilac will transplant easily and establish itself in its new bed with great speed.

There are several plants in this family you may want to investigate. While I’m quite happy with the old-fashioned wild ones, your tastes may run to the French hybrids. These tend to be more intense colors than the species and a much wider choice of colors with around 1000 varieties being available.

Another excellent choice is ‘Miss Kim.’ These hardy plants bloom immediately after the French hybrids but have equally lovely fragrances and colors. By growing both, you can extend your bloom time well into 5-6 weeks of springtime pleasure.

Syringa reticulata ‘Ivory Silk’ is another lilac that will grow up into a small 30-foot tall tree. This is a medium growing small tree with white flowers that are spicily fragrant rather than sweetly scented. I rather like it and have a place for one in next year’s tree planting plans. If you have a small garden, you might want to investigate the dwarf varieties. Most only grow to the 4-6 foot tall range but have the fragrance and bloom shape of their larger cousins. If you have a small garden, these are the answer to what to grow in that sunny space where nothing else seems to want to thrive.

While I can’t create a full pallet of fragrance or plant all the plants that are available, I’m determined to add a few more on our own property of these beautiful shrubs.