Lilac is blooming

This lilac bush didnt have many flowers last year, but it seems to be doing well this year. I had the windows open, and the wind was just right where I could smell it through the whole house.



We really need smell-o-vision.. Could help with tree IDs too!

 

I'm interested in tips myself.. I didn't prune it at all, but I did prune a monster of a norway spruce that was probably shading it out last year. It was taking up a huge area of my front yard, so I took the low branches off to about 8' high. I didn't have a specific strategy there either, besides trying to recover some of my yard...

 

As soon as the blooms are done do a good pruning. New wood will sprout along the branches that you leave behind but next year's blooms will be light. The following year you will have bonus blooms. If you choose to just remove blooms and a few full branches, the other ones will still be there for next year's bloom. That way you get some blooms every year but the plant shape is never really ideal.

 

Mine will have leaves soon

 

If your lilac is big, feel free to really go at it. Cut out any really old wood, open the plant to air. Cut down to about a foot or so any thick old wood you want to keep. If you do a rigorous pruning of the shrubs, leave the branches that you don't prune out or way down alone...let them stay tall. Then, next year you can shorten them.

A healthy lilac is pretty hard to harm. Just don't cut everything back all the same year, and you'll have lots of blooms and vigorous new growth.

You likely have lots of little lilacs starting under the lilacs....they can be dug and transplanted, to establish a lilac hedge if you wish. If you get a hedge about twelve feet long or so, you'll find birds love to nest in the lilacs.

I believe most of you are asking about mature shrubs:

A shrub that produces new growth from the base (lilac) can be renovated when dormant, for drastic renovation. Cut out weak and crossing stems. Cutback all main stems to 12 to 18 inches of the ground, and cut all suckers to ground level. Fertilize well with long lasting fertilizers (bone meal, rock phosphate, greensand, kelp are good) and mulch well (3-4 inches of compost, for example). Water well throughout the season.

For less drastic renovation, Spread the pruning over two to three years. This can be done when dormant or after flowering. Prune half the oldest stems to 2 to 3 inches from the ground. You can cut the remaining stems by about half to new vigorous shoots. Fertilize, water well, and mulch. At the same time the next year, repeat the process of the remaining old stems. Thereafter prune for maintenance.

Maintenance pruning: Immediately after flowering remove weak, dead or damaged stems. Annually cut back 1/4 to 1/2 of all flowered stems to 2-3 inches above ground. After pruning, feed and mulch.

Lilacs come into growth while flowering. The new shoots that are forming below the flowers can be easily damaged when old flowerheads are cut, which will reduce flowering the next year. My suggestion would be to cut flowers for the home primarily from stems you intend to prune out after flowering is finished.

 

As I recall on lilacs the buds for next years flowers set sometime this year. So if you prune it wrong you will be cutting off all of next years flowers.

 

As I recall, lilacs set blooms on 2 year old wood. You can prune back nearly to the ground, and it is very forgiving; but you will not see blooms for two years. In some cases this is worth it, but you could, as suggested, selectively prune partially in order to get that Mother's Day scent, but just remember the 2 year rule.
I used to have a lilac that had several tall branches, and I just cut one down to about two feet every year for three years. Wasn't the prettiest for a while, but it looked real nice by year 5--then I moved.

 

Great info here, thanks Oldman47 sherwood !

I've got an old Lilac that doesn't have many blooms, and in shade 75% of the day. I see now it needs trimmed and some fertilizer. My grandmother was a born gardener, her Lilac hedge was 12 foot wide and 50 foot long, absolutely huge! She was always transplanting and taking cuttings off for starts. I wish I learned more from her about gardening and flowers. I always remember here having a few big cuttings in the house and being able to plant them for new starts... just not sure how she did it?

 

FArmhand 78, if you look under the shrub, you probably have little plants growing under the shrub, suckering from the roots. Just dig them up and transplant them. There are other ways of propagating, if you haven't any suckers, but suckers are easiest. If you have no suckers, then let us know and I'll give some other suggestions.

And, by the way, even after renovating pruning, we've always had good flowering. Drastic renovating will obviously take about two years though. That is only necessary for really overgrown non-productive plants, sort of as a last resort (what have you to lose?). Renovating over two to three years should give you good healthy blooms each year. If your plant is not usually fertilized and mulched, you may be surprised at the flowering you get once you open the plant a bit.

 

sherwood Thanks for the info! I just mowed around the Lilac this morning, there is a bun of suckers down in there, is now the time to transplant? Lovely Wife would like to put a row of Lilacs in front of the house, what is the time frame for them to grow into a decent hedge? When we moved to our farm 5 years ago there was a little twig of Lilac by the driveway (didn't know that is was a Lilac) every year is has gotten a little bigger, and finally had blooms this year, but it is only 2 feet tall. I think with mulch and fertilizer it might take off, I've never heard of lilacs needing fertilizer, I know they can be killed from over fertilization... mother in law decided to mulch her Lilacs with the wood chips from the chicken barn once... now she doesn't have any Lilacs.

 

Our lilacs bloomed a couple of weeks ago - grew up with them and have them at my house now. Love the smell and the look!

 

If you really want a fast start to that lilac hedge, collect the seeds that form this year after the flowers and plant them at a very shallow depth every foot or two along where you want your hedge or dig in the seedling sprouts at a similar spacing. I have tons of self planted sprouts from seed that grow out as a single stem to maybe 4 feet tall the first year. As has been said, they also sprout freely from roots of established plants so in a couple of years you will have a group of 5 or 6 stems sprouting right next to that first sprout. I am sure the fertilizer that Sherwood mentions would help but I tend to let my plants work with what they can find in my native soil. My clumps beside the driveway are now about 25 years old, have been pruned frequently, have 20+ stems in each clump and stand about 15 feet tall and cast a large shadow (not good for the peonies or the iris). If I liked them shorter that would be no problem, just more frequent and more radical pruning. The only thing I have seen that will slow down a lilac is shade. One of my plantings was eventually quite shaded when an ash grew to around 3 feet dbh 10 feet from it. It suffered and did not thrive but it stayed alive that way for years. That ash came down 2 years ago and this year that lilac is recovered enough that I am considering whether to prune it this year to keep it in check.

 

It's always a really good idea to be very cautious about using wood chips around plants. Wood shavings and raw chicken manure would be likely to kill a plant...too hot, too much nitrogen.

I have found I can transplant any plant at any time of year. The trick is not to stress the plant. Those little suckers will not be blooming, so I would not worry at all about moving them.

There are a few basic rules about transplanting:

Be sure to water the plants you are going to transplant well the day before you plan to transplant. Also the day before, prepare the holes into which you are going to transplant the plants. Dig them about twice as wide and deep as the plant will require, and add a very small amount of any of the following that you have: Epsom salts, blood meal, bone meal, fish meal, kelp meal, greensand, rockphosphate. If your soil is acidic, a little mushroom compost or a SMALL amount of wood ash can be added to sweeten the soil. I usually mix those products I listed together, about a T or 2 of each, and add about a teaspoon to each planting hole, mixing the fertilizer in well with the soil at the bottom of the root zone. If you don't have any of those fertilizers, then add compost to the planting hole instead, up to as much as making the soil 1/2 compost and 1/2 garden soil. I then build a small mount in the center of the hole, for the plant to sit on, so I can fan its roots down around the mound. Dig the holes as far apart as you eventually want the shrubs. I'd probably put two feet or so between each plant. If the area looks too bare for you when doing that, plant some annuals or vegetables in between until the lilacs grown. Spinach, chard, and lettuces can look very nice, as can kale or collards. Or, alternatively, plant the lilacs closer together, and transplant every other one again in two years, when the lilacs are dormant, spacing them further apart.

If the following day (transplanting day) is calm and cloudy and not too hot (below 80) and humid, you can transplant any time of the day. But, if hot, humid, windy or sunny, wait and transplant late in the day so the plants have overnight to recover. If it is very windy, cover them with a bucket or newspapers supported on coat hangers or other wire, or some such thing, for 24 hours. Dig the suckers, trying to get as many fine root hairs and keeping as much soil around the roots as possible. You can simply take the entire shovel with soil and plant intact and place in the transplanting hole, if your soil allows that. In that case, after placing the transplant in the hole, fill the hole with warm water (fill some watering cans or buckets with water early in the day so you don't shock the plants with cold well water). If you have fish emulsion, you can put a teaspoonful into a gallon of water and use that solution for watering, which gives the plants a boost, but isn't necessary. Once the water drains, fill the hole with some of the earth you removed, gently firm the soil around the plant, making sure you plant to the same height that the sucker was previously growing (soil should reach the same place on the stem as it did in the original hole). If your soil is very sandy or very friable and slips off the roots easily when transplanting, then place the suckers in a plastic bag with wet newspapers while moving them so the roots don't dry at all. Place them on the crowns you have built in the planting holes, half fill the holes with the earth you have removed, water until the hole is full, let it drain, then finish filling the hole and gently firm the earth. Then put a 3 to 4 inch layer of mulch around the plants. You can use grass clipping (just keep them an inch or so away from the stem so you don't burn it), which you will have to keep adding to during the season as the clippings compost down, to maintain a 3-4 inch layer of mulch, or you can use good compost from your compost pile, or shredded leaves. watered down so they won't blow away. If the summer is dry, then water the lilacs once a week during their first year so you are sure they develop good roots. If your soil is reasonably fertile, and you do the above, and mulch with compost each year, then the plants should grow quite quickly, and be blooming within about three years.