Common Lilac, French Lilac (Syringa vulgaris)

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paani Cowichan Valley, BC(Zone 8b) Mar 10, 2005

Common Lilac, French Lilac
Syringa vulgaris

The Old Paton Lilac. Planted in Iowa, 1875. Moved to Illinois in 1988 by GuyS (StarhillForest)

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paani Cowichan Valley, BC(Zone 8b) Mar 11, 2005

GuyS (StarhillForest) kindly let me move this photo from a thread about transplanting a lilac into the PlantFiles where more people can enjoy it. Here is what he told us about it:

In 1988 I brought home a huge lilac planted on my wife's grandmother's farm in Paton, Iowa in 1875. I hand-dug a 5000-pound rootball 6 feet in diameter and 3 feet deep, lifting it into my trailer with a large trackhoe.

This picture shows the "Old Paton Lilac" settled into its new home, as seen from our front door in central Illinois. If you can find back issues of Fine Gardening from 1989 at your library, you can see the whole transplanting process, step by step ("Rescuing the Old Paton Lilac").

I'm sure I "wasted" much more time and effort on that tree than it would have been worth to anyone else, but sometimes you just gotta do things like that.

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Toxicodendron Piedmont, MO(Zone 6a) Mar 11, 2005

That is absolutely fantastic looking in that setting.
I wonder how they got the huge trunks? My lilacs send up a multitude of suckers every year, and my pruning book says to cut off the oldest canes and let some new ones grow that will bloom better. I would say this picture totally negates that advice. And since I can't brag on the prolific blooms of new growth, I think I might try keeping the oldest canes and eliminating all the new suckers.
Anyway, thanks for getting this in the PF so we can all see it.

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Songbird839 Medicine Hat, AB(Zone 3a) Mar 12, 2005

Gorgeous! Well worth saving, I'd say! Thanks for the pic!

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sjms Keene, NH(Zone 5a) Mar 14, 2005

what a beautiful old monarch- it's true that pruning to keep the old trunk can give a gorgeous venerable look after many years.

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uhlenkaj Bellevue, NE Apr 16, 2008

Thanks for sharing that picture! It is beautiful. I'm willing to bet two of my lilac bushes in my yard are also as old as this one, circa 1875. Now that I see how nice and cleaned up yours is I'm going to have to do the same to mine. Truly surreal!
Jim/Omaha.

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