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Garden Gate:  Pruning Lilacs  |
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ali2583
True Blue Farmgirl
404 Posts
Alison
Winnipeg
Manitoba
Canada
404 Posts |
 Posted - Mar 15 2006 : 09:00:17 AM
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I have a big, beautiful old lilac bush in my backyard, close to 7 feet tall, but last spring it only produced 3 blooms. It is pretty overgrown and I knew it was in trouble, so I know I need to take some drastic action to make it flourish once again.
So....after consulting with a few different website and books, everyone seems to recommend giving the lilac bush a drastic, and I do mean drastic, pruning. They recommend cutting it down to about a foot, and foregoing blooms for this year. Oh help! I love nothing more than the pretty smell of lilacs in spring, and I know this pruning is necessary, but it doesn't help the pain! Oh well, short term pain, long term gain I suppose.
I'm going to do the pruning this afternoon. Please think of me so I can get thru pruning my precious lilac!
"God's gift to you is life. What you choose to do with that life is your gift to God" |
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therusticcottage
True Blue Farmgirl
4439 Posts
Kay
Vancouver
WA
USA
4439 Posts |
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Julia
True Blue Farmgirl
1949 Posts
Julia
Shelton
WA
USA
1949 Posts |
Posted - Mar 15 2006 : 10:59:48 AM
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Oh Alison! As one who looooooooves lilacs, I understand. We were renting a place that had 4 lilac bushes. We bought a place a little over a year ago with no lilacs. A friend bout me two but they are small. I still don't think I will get this year either. So we can be lilac less together this year. HOpefully, next year your bush will be full of blooms and maybe I will have one or two!
"...the setting sun is like going into the very presence of God." Elizabeth Von Arnim |
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Aunt Jenny
True Blue Farmgirl
11381 Posts
Jenny
middle of
Utah
USA
11381 Posts |
Posted - Mar 15 2006 : 11:26:54 AM
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I love my old tall lilacs too and i think this will be our year to finally do major pruning on them. Husband likes the "down to a foot tall" idea, but I am more likely to take off a 1/3. I have three different kinds and I am honestly not real sure how many actual plants there are...they are sort of in a row on the west border of our property out on the side yard. I love them! There were not as many last spring as the first two springs we were here though. AFter blooming this year I guess I will bite the bullet and do it too. I will be thinking of you Alison..I hope yours comes out great.
Jenny in Utah
Inside me there is a skinny woman crying to get out...but I can usually shut her up with cookies
http://www.auntjennysworld.blogspot.com/ visit my little online shop at www.auntjenny.etsy.com |
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sleepless reader
True Blue Farmgirl
1022 Posts
CA
USA
1022 Posts |
Posted - Mar 15 2006 : 12:55:22 PM
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Do the 1/3 method!! My husband did a "super-pruning" one year and it took at least three years to get blossoms again. I refered to it as the stick garden!
Sharon
Life is messy. Wear your apron! |
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ali2583
True Blue Farmgirl
404 Posts
Alison
Winnipeg
Manitoba
Canada
404 Posts |
Posted - Mar 15 2006 : 2:12:45 PM
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Oh no! I don't think I can go without blossoms for 3 years :-(
My Canadian Gardening magazine had recommended the "super-pruning" in very late winter, or very early spring (right about now) before any active growth took place. I'm going to start pruning as soon as I get home from work....I may try 1/3 to 1/2 off, then maintain it every year. Hope for the best!
"God's gift to you is life. What you choose to do with that life is your gift to God" |
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asnedecor
True Blue Farmgirl
1054 Posts
Anne
Portland
Or
USA
1054 Posts |
Posted - Mar 15 2006 : 2:51:42 PM
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Alison -
I have an old lilac bush - probably 50 years old. I have done the slow prune. After it blooms I prune about 1/3 down. It has continued to bloom beautifully every year. Some years a few less, if I prune a bit heavy, but always quite a few. A little fertilizer every year helps too.
Anne
"Second star to the right, straight on till morning" Peter Pan
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therusticcottage
True Blue Farmgirl
4439 Posts
Kay
Vancouver
WA
USA
4439 Posts |
Posted - Mar 15 2006 : 3:08:03 PM
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I read an article that said that lilacs are actually biennial. They actually bloom every other -- one year you'll have lots of blossoms and the next just a few. With the 1/3 pruning it actually helps them to have about the same amount of blooms every year.
I had 8 lilac bushes at my old house (I collected them from the local lilac garden every year). I used to buy tissue samples because they are cheaper and then repot each year until they got big enough to put in the ground. It takes about 5 years to get a first bloom.
http://therusticcottage.etsy.com
http://www.homesteadblogger.com/therusticcottage/
http://rusticcottage.blogspot.com |
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Celticheart
True Blue Farmgirl
811 Posts
Marcia
WA
USA
811 Posts |
Posted - Mar 15 2006 : 6:52:13 PM
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Kay,
Do you live close to that lilac garden that was owned by an old woman who developed many different and new varieties? I read about that in a gardening magazine a few years ago. It sounded like a great place to visit when the lilacs are blooming....or anytime really.
Marcia
"I suppose the pleasure of country life lies really in the eternally renewed evidence of the determination to live." Vita Sackville-West
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sillyfoulks
True Blue Farmgirl
164 Posts
Elizabeth
Illinois
USA
164 Posts |
Posted - Mar 16 2006 : 06:05:57 AM
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Alison, I have the same situation with my old lilac. Very old, with very few blooms. After doing some research myself I came to the same conclusion. I did some pruning last year, but finally finished it all just last week.
My Lilac was no longer just one it had become a 8ft round forest, with very few blooms. I trimmed all the old wood down to where there was a good branch of new growth, (some as low as 1ft others 3 ft). I have also been digging a transplanted as many suckers as I could. Now it is down to about 3ft wide. My garden club also said to trim after blooms, but that is if you want it to bloom the year. Mine had only just 2 or 3 blooms, so a year with now blooms isn't going to bother me. Also, any energy the plant would spend on it's blooms, hopefully it will spend on sending new shoots of the main branches. However, by taking 2 yrs to complete the pruning, I hoping it has given mine a chance to still have a few blooms on the newer branches. We shall see.
I love lilacs, and was excited when I found our new place had one. The house I grew up in had 7 lining the back fence & when we bought our first house we got shoots from the old place and planted them along our fence. For me it is a tradition to have lilacs, as well as bearded Iris and Naked Lady Amarylis.
Elizabeth
Not how long, but how well you have lived is the main thing.
http://livingcountrystyle.blogspot.com/ |
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LJRphoto
True Blue Farmgirl
760 Posts
Laura
Hickory Corners
MI
USA
760 Posts |
Posted - Mar 16 2006 : 06:54:49 AM
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Our new house had a couple of really sad looking lilacs planted in a really bad spot so I hacked them down. I think there might be a couple of others here and there but i'm not sure.
Elizabeth, i love bearded iris too, and i'm intrigued... what is naked lady amarylis?
"Whenever you find yourself on the side of the majority, it's time to pause and reflect." -Mark Twain
http://ljrenterprises.blogspot.com/ |
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therusticcottage
True Blue Farmgirl
4439 Posts
Kay
Vancouver
WA
USA
4439 Posts |
Posted - Mar 16 2006 : 07:01:50 AM
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Marcia -- I am about 6 miles from the Hulda Klager Lilac Garden. They have a festival every year when the lilacs are in bloom. It is fabulous when your walk through the gate and you can smell all the lilacs. There are over 100 varities there and many she developed. They sell all sizes of bushes but I would buy the small tissue samples for $5 each and then patiently wait for them to get big. Her house is still there and your can tour it. When she was 84 years old the river flooded and completely destroyed the gardens. She started over, got cuts of her lilac bushes from people who had bought from her, and planted the gardens again. Hulda was an amazing woman.
http://therusticcottage.etsy.com
http://www.homesteadblogger.com/therusticcottage/
http://rusticcottage.blogspot.com |
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sugarsfarm
True Blue Farmgirl
272 Posts
Leah
Woodward
Iowa
USA
272 Posts |
Posted - Mar 16 2006 : 5:32:12 PM
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The lilac festival sounds wonderful Kay!! and what a woman Hulda was!! I adore my old lilac bushes and cant wait for them to bloom, i also should prune this year, How do I prune the bush?, since ive never done it before.
You must be the change you want to see in the world.
Mahatma Gandhi |
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Amie C.
True Blue Farmgirl
2099 Posts
Finger Lakes Region
NY
2099 Posts |
Posted - Mar 17 2006 : 09:53:03 AM
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I was under the impression that lilacs grow new shoots from the roots directly, so that you have to cut them all the way down to encourage new growth. When you guys talk about pruning back 1/3, do you mean cutting off 1/3 of the number of trunks your bush has, or do you mean cutting each trunk to 1/3 of its height? Do new shoots spring out on the shortened trunk?
I have a lilac in my yard that is more like a small tree than a bush. It has four or five slender trunks, but the small branches and flowers are about 15 feet up (too high to pick!) Do you think this is just the kind it is, or is it because it was planted in a shady spot and had to grow tall before getting enough light to bloom? I'm afraid to cut off any of the trunks, for fear that they may not have enough light to grow back.
You'd think I'd know more about lilacs, coming from Rochester, the home of the Lilac Festival. I guess I've just taken them for granted. It's a rare yard in this city that doesn't have a lilac. |
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Mari-dahlia
True Blue Farmgirl
269 Posts
Marianne
Hoosick Falls
New York
USA
269 Posts |
Posted - Mar 20 2006 : 12:12:10 PM
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Lilacs bloom on older growth the best. Yes when you do prune you prune by 1/3. Taking out old wood first, cutting back to a main branch or to the ground, the indiviual limb, not the whole bush. It takes 3-5 years for a lilac to come back into bloom if you just trim the whole thing, I learned that one the hard way.
Lilacs thrive on neglect. You could never prune and get more blooms and they do not really like fertilizer. My lilacs are very old and have not been pruned in 30 years and bloom like crazy.
Some years are better than others. They do tend to bloom heavily every other year but weather has alot to do with what they do also.
PH is sometimes an issue. They are a more neutral loving plant than lets say azaleas who like a more acidic soil.
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Libbie
Farmgirl Connection Cultivator
3579 Posts
Anne E.
Elsinore
Utah
USA
3579 Posts |
Posted - Mar 20 2006 : 2:04:17 PM
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I have a few really old lilacs that are getting scraggly - or, rather, staying scraggly, and, after reading these, I think I'll do the 1/3 method after this year's bloom. We also planted lilac bushes all along the roadside along the front of our property about 4 years ago, and they are starting to get really robust. I just can't wait for this year's flowering!
XOXO, Libbie
"Nothing is worth more than this day." - Goethe |
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ali2583
True Blue Farmgirl
404 Posts
Alison
Winnipeg
Manitoba
Canada
404 Posts |
Posted - Mar 20 2006 : 2:50:38 PM
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Well, I did the 1/3 method last Wednesday, it took a bit of courage and hutzpah to get up the nerve to do it, but I did it! I cut off all the suckers that were growing around, as well as all the branches that were "crossing" over other branches. We shall wait and see. I also mulched some bone meal into the soil surrounding the lilac bush last year. I think I shall do the same this year and see what happens. Please pass on any other lilac growing tips you have!
Marcia - I'm not close to any lilac gardens (that I know of!) but I have heard of an old lady who did a lot of research and developed quite a few new varieties of lilacs in Canada. But I think it was more in the 50's and 60's, I think she may have passed away by now. Who knows? :-)
"God's gift to you is life. What you choose to do with that life is your gift to God" |
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sillyfoulks
True Blue Farmgirl
164 Posts
Elizabeth
Illinois
USA
164 Posts |
Posted - Mar 22 2006 : 06:38:06 AM
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Laura wrote, "Elizabeth, i love bearded iris too, and i'm intrigued... what is naked lady amarylis?"
Naked Lady is how I know them, they are an old variaty. My Great-grandparents, Grandparents, and parents called them that. I never knew them as anything else until a few years back when I ran across and article (probably in Better Homes & Gardens). They called them BellaDonna Amarylis. They're leaves come up in early spring or winter (depends on zone, but die back before they bloom. The blooms are pink, and get the name naked lady from the fact they bloom with no leaves. Here is a link to some.
http://www.merrifieldgardencenter.com/products.php?pid=10883&openparent=2296
http://www.megspace.com/family/kenvir/Naked-lady.html
Elizabeth
Not how long, but how well you have lived is the main thing.
http://livingcountrystyle.blogspot.com/ |
Edited by - sillyfoulks on Mar 22 2006 06:42:04 AM |
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Alaska farm girl
True Blue Farmgirl
123 Posts
dorothy
skagway
Alaska
USA
123 Posts |
Posted - Apr 06 2006 : 12:51:30 PM
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| Hi, we have a town full of 100 year old lilacs. It smells so beautiful here in late May.I do have a couple of suggestions tho.The lilac suckers take strength from the main bush,if its an old tree pick four of the thickest suckers,leave them be and cut out everything else. You sometimes can leave the main body,or trunk, but if its too tall it is not going to produce well. I also recommend either seaweed or a seaweed type fertilizer(try www.Gardens Alive catalog).My grandma swore by coffee grounds and egg shells around the base.I also know urea works well.They love it.!Last,when you do end up having some blossoms to take into the house,make sure you cut RIGHT BEHIND the blossom so you don't take next years start. good luck. |
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Garden Gate: Pruning Lilacs |
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Pruning Lilacs
