Liliac not doing well

I bought a lilac bare root from Emery's 2-3 years ago. It is still a bit of a tall pencil with only leaves at the tips of its branches. Tell me what to do.

If you need any more, I've got healthy stands of white, pale lilac, and dark lilac that all send up more suckers than I can count. I share as many as I can.

So what is the scoop on health lilacs?

The like sun and sweet (limed), lean soil. Is yours in a shadier spot?

Mine is in a sunny spot, but I have not sweetened up the soil at all. I have both powered lime and a slower release lime. I can use either, your thoughts.

Bonehead, I'll take suckers off the white.

A-Dog, mine are spindly too. I think they just take a super long time. 'Fertilizing' probably will help. They can take some shade, so that should not be a problem.

Depending on how tall they are, you could prune them to see if you can get them to branch out a bit.

This message was edited May 2, 2010 5:01 AM

I think you just have to wait. Lilacs are slow to establish in my yard. You can lime the soil but unless it's really acid, that's not likely to help all that much. Once they take off, there is little that will stop them. If this is the lilac's third year, it should be growing well and might bloom next year. I've found that they can be finicky about blooms sometimes. I think I posted on another thread that an old lilac I dug up 18 years ago finally has a good stand of blooms this year. It's been in the spot where it is now planted for 11 years. Last year I threatened it with the compost bin if I didn't see blooms this year. I have blooms this year. Maybe you just need to threaten it.

OK, they can be toughies, huh. That's what I was reading in my pruning book. There will be none of that either. Just lime and fertilizer.

In my experience, they like the extremes of temperature to get them to bloom. They just don't do as well in the PNW as they do in eastern WA and OR or the midwest.

Maybe it was the freeze in November that pretty much killed off many other things that caused the lilacs to be so pretty this year. Hmmm. I think I will forgo the brief beauty of lilacs and say 'no thanks' to the long deep freeze during growing season.

Good point. I'm with you. And my neighbor said that she heard that this summer is supposed to be hotter longer than last summer. Time to buy some rain barrels . . .

My lilacs have taken a really long time to establish...I transplanted them 3 years ago, so hopefully next year will be my magical year of blooming. None of my 4 have bloomed yet...sad! They are my favorites!
I agree that they take a long time to establish.
Question on sweetening up soil - do wood ashes do just as well to sweeten up the soil since they are alkaline? Also what nutrient do wood ashes add? I was wondering because if they help establish roots and blooms, then that might help my lilacs? We have acid soil, so I need to sweeten it up with something. I have lime too, but wondered if wood ashes would be better.

Cassy - I think wood ashes will do the trick. A zillion threads back, Thistledownfarms said her grandmother (I think it was) would put wood ashes on the lilacs every summer to make them bloom . . .

Again, we have pretty temperate climate here and I think that's not optimal for them. My mother had a lilac in Corvallis for 20 years and it rarely did anything dramatic. I think it just didn't get cold or hot enough.

Hehe, that reminds me, you know what's probably not a good thing to do to a lilac? Something I did a few weeks ago... While preparing the planting hole, accidentally mix in wet peat moss, thinking it's wet chicken manure.... and only realize what you've done after you're all done and watering in your newly planted lilac. "Welcome home, baby lilac. I believe in tough love, here's some acidic soil... I'm only doing this now so you know how good you've got it when I start treating you right. You'll bloom for me if you know what's good for ya... It's called tough love..."

At our old house in Monroe, we had a 15+ foot lilac in the backyard... I think it was 20 years old or so and it bloomed like mad and was so fragrant until I tried to prune it. I felt so bad... Don't mess with what's working, that was the lesson...

Ouch. Love that dialogue.

Of course, the lilac is probably ornery enough that it'll bloom out of spite. I'll await the outcome.

And yet they have the famous Kruger(I think) Lilac Farm in Oregon.

You're thinking of the Hulda Klager Lilac Garden in Woodland, WA, just a few miles north of the border.

http://www.lilacgardens.com/

Open this year til May 9th. Stunning stunning gardens. They might be able to offer some advice too.

I've been there, but not when the lilacs were in bloom, unfortunately . . .

Oops, got my borders crossed.

We're supposed to have a hot summer? When does that start? Can we borrow a little of that warmth just now? I'm so tired of being cold.

Come to think of it, I did put wood ashes around the lilacs last winter. And a few other lime lovers, too. Now I don't know what helped more, the cold or the ashes.

Yes, it's too cold right now. What's up with this? I hope we don't have a hot summer - so far I haven't heard any predictions along that line.

I didn't put wood ashes around my lilacs and I'm getting more blossoms than usual on one of them. They are different cultivars. The one that is blooming gets more sun than the other . . .

I placed an order for 6 - 8 weeks of 80° (or more, pretty please.)
I need to put food up this summer, so the tomatoes, beans, squash & corn need 2 months of full sun.

I second that order! I need some heat!
So it must have been the cold snap that did it for the lilacs. I wish they lasted longer. They smell just heavenly!

Come on over and climb in my cloche, well don't climb on anything, as everything is growing great.

This cold weather has got to go, though. Remember, summer officially starts July 5.

Yeah, but we're 10 degrees below "normal". Yuck. Actually, I just got back in from taking the garbage up the road and it feels quite a bit warmer. Fingers crossed that this ill stick a little bit.

I feel like we are being led by the nose by dear old mother nature. First we have this wierd cold November where things die, then we have this almost glorious rest of the winter with some nice sunny days and even warm weather before spring, teasing plants to wake up a month early. Then they, and we are hit with more cold wet stuff. She is losing my trust!

It's enough to make a gardener go back to natives - but those aren't all so easy to find, either.

Tell me about it. May usually gets warmer, then June decends with its cold to 5 July when it is 75F and sunny.

tell me which are the native tomatoes...=:0)

Um, er, . . . rose hips?

mmmmm - crunchy!
kinda funky for marinara sauce, though...

Rose hip marinara - I like it. Kind of a toss up between rose hip marinara or Indian Plum marinara. Not sure I'd like either.

I learned last weekend that Columbine blossoms are edible . . .

oooh - now that sounds interesting. Did you hear what the flavour profile is? Geez i could go outside & taste any of those blooming. hmmmmm. must check this out.

When I was young, I used to chew off the little globe-like bottoms of the columbine flowers. Very Sweet honey-like flavor.

Disclaimer. :-)

http://woodridge.wordpress.com/2010/04/18/edible-flowers-columbine/

You want indian plum? I got Indian plum. Native schmative. They are weedy as all get out in my garden. I pull them up the same way I pull up the big leaf maple seedlings. And the fir seedlings. And the snowberry that will take over if given a chance. The only thing I like about it is the cute little yellow 'plums'. They are very attractive and the birds like them. If you want to come harvest for your native marinara sauce, have at it! I will throw in some rose hips and what is left at that point of the hazelnuts.
We used to suck on the flowers of red clover. You pull the petals out and the ends of them taste like sugar. Sheesh. I loved sugar even then!

But what about the honeysuckle flowers sweet as could be, pull the petal group off and suck the nectar from inside.

mmmmmmmmmmmmm. Honeysuckle is wonderful.
It's one of those that belong in the "never-ending" category.