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Growing Lilacs
How to Plant, Grow, and Care for Lilac Shrubs
How to Plant, Grow, and Care for Lilac Shrubs
Huge blooms, wonderful scent.
Wally PatrickWho doesn’t love lilacs? The ideal lilac shrub has about 10 canes and produces flowers at eye-level—all the better to enjoy that sweet, haunting fragrance.
Lilacs do come in seven colors, but most are familiar with the common lilac, Syringa vulgaris, which blooms in the northern states for 2 weeks in late May. However, there are early-, mid-, and late-season lilacs, which, when grown together, ensure a steady bloom for at least 6 weeks.
Lilacs are hardy, easy to grow, and low maintenance. They can grow from 5 to 15 feet tall, depending on the variety. The fragrant flowers are good for cutting and attractive to butterflies.
Planting
- Grow lilacs in fertile, humus-rich, well-drained, neutral to alkaline soil (at a pH near 7.0). If your soil is in poor condition, add compost to enrich. Learn more about soil amendments and preparing soil for planting.
- Select a site where your lilac will get full sun—at least 6 hours. If lilacs don’t get enough sun, they will not bloom well.
- Make sure the site drains well. Lilacs don’t like wet feet and will not bloom with too much water.
- Plant in either spring or fall, although the latter is preferred.
- If you’re lucky, a friend will give you a sucker, or offshoot, of the root system of one of his plants. Your sucker will look pathetic at first but just dig a hole, backfill it with soil, and stick the sucker in. Then water and wait. In 4 or 5 years, you’ll be rewarded with huge, fragrant blossoms.
- Transplanting lilacs from a nursery is also easy. If it’s container-grown, spread out the roots as you settle the plant into the ground; if it’s balled or burlapped, gently remove the covering and any rope before planting. Set the plant 2 or 3 inches deeper than it grew in the nursery, and work topsoil in around the roots. Water in. Then fill in the hole with more topsoil.
- Space multiple lilac bushes 5 to 15 feet apart, depending on the variety.
Care
- Each spring, apply a layer of compost under the plant, followed by mulch to retain moisture and control weeds.
- Water during the summer if rainfall is less than 1 inch per week.
- Lilacs won’t bloom if they’re overfertilized. They can handle a handful of 10-10-10 in late winter, but no more.
- After your lilac bush has finished blooming, spread some lime and well-rotted manure around the base. Trim the bush to shape it, and remove suckers at the same time.
Pruning Lilacs
- Lilacs bloom on old wood, so it’s critical to prune in the spring right after they bloom. If you prune later in the summer, you may be removing the wood. Here’s a tip: If your lilac flower clusters are getting smaller, time to prune!
- Every year after bloom, remove any dead wood. Prune out the oldest canes (down to the ground). Remove the small suckers. Cut back weak branches to a strong shoot. Cut back tall canes to eye height.
- If your lilac is old and in really bad shape, remove one-third of the oldest canes (down to the ground) in year one, half of the remaining old wood in year two, and the rest of the old wood in year three. Another option for old lilacs is to chop the whole thing back to about 6 or 8 inches high. It sounds drastic, but lilacs are very hardy. The downside to this option is that it takes a few years to grow back. The upside is less work and more reward, as the lilac will grow back bursting with blooms.
- It must be recognized that severe pruning results in the loss of blooms for one to three years. For these reasons, a wise pruning program aims to avoid severe and drastic cuts by giving the bushes annual attention.
Pests/Diseases
- Prone to attack by slugs and snails.
- Powdery white mildew may appear after a summer of hot, humid weather. It may be unsightly, but it does no harm. Ignore it.
Recommended Varieties
The most common and fragrant lilacs are of the S. vulgaris variety:
- For early bloom, try ‘Charles Joly’, a double magneta.
- Mid-season lilacs include ‘Monge’, a dark reddish purple, and ‘Firmament’, a fine blue.
- Late-season beauties include ‘Miss Canada’, a reddishpink, and ‘Donald Wyman’, a single purple.
Although common lilacs love cold weather, a few thrive as south as Zone 9, among them the cutleaf lilac, a fragrant pale lavender. Syringa patula ‘Miss Kim’ is a graceful shrub with pale lilac-blue flowers that fade to white.
Wit & Wisdom
- To improve the flowering of lilacs, keep the grass from growing around them. A 16- to 24-inch circle of landscape cloth placed around the bushes and covered with bark or stone will keep the grass down.
- Force a winter bouquet from cut branches of lilac. Bruise the cut ends and set them in water. Spray the branches frequently. Keep them in a cool place until they bloom, then move to a warmer area for display.
- Poet Walt Whitman thought of lilacs when Abraham Lincoln died:
“When lilacs last in the dooryard bloom’d … I mourn’d, and yet shall mourn with ever-returning spring.” - Lilacs supposedly symbolize the joy of youth. Learn about more flower symbolism here.
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Reader Comments
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root barrier
Hopefully someone can share a little insight. I've planted several lilacs along my back fence. I was in a quandary as to what to do regarding the invasive ground cover sneaking under the fence from my neighbors yard. I have attempted to pull it out , but presume that it will return repeatedly. Consequently I chose to plant each of my five lilacs in a circular barrier made from half a large trash barrel. The barrels are approximately 22 in in diameter and fourteen to sixteen inches in height. The hope is to allow the lilacs roots to grow below the barrier and spread as the plant matures while keeping the invasive ground cover with more shallow roots separate. Hopefully I'm not confining the lilac roots if they tend to grow more shallowly themselves. Any thoughts out there?
lilac in a bucket
Almost everything works for a while. You are removing the bottom from the barrels, right? If you do not, you will confine the lilac roots and eventually they will cease to thrive (we’re guessing that would happen before the barrels break down to release the roots). And you’re setting the barrels deep enough to have the rim at ground level? Or are the barrels going to be above ground, shielding 14 to 16 inches of lilac trunk?
You do not name the ground cover but you are probably correct in expecting it to return, despite your pulling it out. (There is a saying about ground covers: the first year it sleeps, the second year it creeps, the third year it leaps.) If the barrels are aboveground (not sunk to the rim) the ground cover roots could eventually make their way past the barrel barrier. Could you sink edging between you and your neighbor? A healthy lilac will send out suckers, too. Whether these appear within the perimeter of your barriers or reach from the depths and “pop up” outside of the barrier remains to be seen.
Another thought is to mulch the lilacs. A thick (3 to 4 inch) layer should help to deter or slow down the ground cover.
Hope something here helps.
The idea of sinking a barrier
The idea of sinking a barrier between yards is a great, I'm going to try this too!
Can we still prune our lilac bush
We still have the dead blooms on our bush, and some spindly branches, with no growth (not even leaves). We moved our lilac bush, 2 years ago, and it has grown bigger and better, and this year we have noticed a 2 foot tall, addition coming up! It’s all nice green leaves, which has confirmed that our move/transplant that we did was the right thing to do. Whoever planted before we lived there, placed it in a corner, about 2 feet from a short wooden fence. Since we moved “her” out of the corner and away from the fence,it’s responding well. It gets plenty of sun, has a weed/grass cloth, all around it, and we water it when necessary. The one thing we have no experience with, is pruning. I would love to see it produce more blooms, as well as “fill”, out, but we don’t want to do it wrong or, probably, too late. Can you help us?
when to prune
The best time to prune is after the bloom passes. See above also (repeated here for expediency):
Lilacs
Do i cut off dead lilacs when they all die?
dead blooms
If you are referring to the flowers, yes, you can do that.
Great grandmothers lilac lost it's leaves...
We have transplanted our great grandmother's lilac quite a few times and now it is with me in NC. It was planted in September but now has lost all its leaves... I have read it may have too much nitrogen, so I am feeding it bone meal and phosphorus. But have read lots of other info on this... Can you add some helpful input? Thanks in advance for any help you can give me... It is the original plant from the 1910's and very important to me!
helpful input
Most of our helpful input is above on this page. Consider the suggestions for compost in spring and well-rotted manure after bloom and other care tips. Great grandmother would be happy with your success.
Young lilacs, lovely green leaves that are tinged red
Hello. I received bare root lilacs from the Arbor Foundation last year. Planted them. seem fine. They are about a foot/foot and half now and very green leaves. BUT, I noticed last night some of the leaves are sort of tinged a darker red. The leaves look healthy..not dry...not curled....just sort of edged in red. Any thoughts? I am in SE Wisconsin.
Thanks
Red-Tinged Lilac Leaves
Hi Denise,
Red-tinged leaves can be a sign of a nutrient deficiency. The exact nutrient that the plant is lacking is hard to identify, so a good cure-all is to amend the soil with aged compost. We hope this helps!
Zone 7 with acidic soil
I live in Georgia and the soil is quite acidic, can I grow lilacs in a container? If I can, how big a container should I use and would bags of top soil be alkaline enough? What lilacs would be best to grow in a container?
Lilacs in Georgia
Lilacs need chilling hours during the winter so they’re not meant for most Southern climates, whether in the ground or a container. It’s not to say it can’t be done but most lilacs require over two thousand hours of temperatures below 45 degrees F. in order to bloom. They need the cold to set the buds for next year’s bloom. We’d suggest asking your local nurseries about varieties that have low-chilling requirements. From what we read, some lilacs that don’t need as much chilling are: ‘Lavender Lady’, ‘Blue Boy’, ‘Dark Knight’, ‘Miss Kim’, ‘Betsy Ross’ or ‘White Angel’ (‘Angel White’) lilac. Lilacs need a neutral soil so you’ll probably need to add lime.
Planting a lilac shrub in a container is doable but not recommended. Lilacs grow best when their roots are free to spread out. As you said, lilacs can’t tolerate acidic soil, and the same goes for soil in pots. Most commercial potting soils contain at least some pH lowering peat moss. So you’ll need to add 1 cup of dolomite lime to every 2 cubic feet of potting soil. Also, note that lilacs can’t overwinter inside. They need those chilling hours and must go outside.
Better yet, look for a similar plant that thrives naturally in Georgia such as Syringa laciniata (cut leaf lilac).
Growing back young plants & Starting from seed
Sigh. I'm trying to grow lilacs on a budget (no budget, really) and had 2 year old plants mowed completely down last year by mistake, but they're growing again; they're a couple of inches tall. How many years ya think til I'll see flowers? Also, from seed, how many years there? I'm 55 and don't want to wait a decade... Input please! Thanks :)
Young Lilacs
Generally, it’s not recommended to start lilacs from seed—it may be 3–4 years until they start flowering, assuming they are growing in optimal conditions. As for your small plants, they may produce blooms in another 2–3 years, or sooner if you’re lucky and they’re happy.
Dark Dark Purple Flowers
When I was a young girl we had a gorgeous lilac bush that had very deep dark purple flowers. Not red. Almost black. I cannot seem to find them anymore anywhere. Do they still exist? I know color is subjective, but these were such a dark purple and were beautiful!
Deep purple almost black
There are a few lilac shrubs that are deep purple, though we wouldn’t say they’re close to black. Search online for: Syringa x hyacinthiflora ‘Dark Night,’ Syringa vulgaris ‘Arch McKean,’ and Syringa vulgaris “Yankee Doodle”
If you’re looking for a similar bush with deep purple, almost black flowers, search online for Buddleja davidii ‘Black Knight.’ It’s a butterfly bush but fits your description.
cutting lilac blooms for arrangement
Our lilacs are in mid-to-full bloom right now. I would like to cut some blooms for a table arrangement.
Will this endeavour affect the amount of next year's blooms?
When to Cut Lilac Flowers
Hi Emily,
Cutting lilac flowers now will not affect next year’s blooms. Those buds will form in the summer.
planting lilac bushes
I live in Northwest Reno Nv. when is it time to plant lilacs? Do I have to wait until fall?
Lilac's in my area
I like in northwest Florida area and just lilac's. I grew up in northern Illinois and have always waned to have a bush since I moved to this area. Will they grow and produce there beautiful flowers and smell in Northwest Florida area?
Lilacs for Florida
Several kinds will flower in Zone 8, including Josee and Miss Kim. For Zone 9, try the Beach Party lilacs. I bought Snowy Beach Party this Spring, and so far it's happy. If it continues to flourish, I'll try Rosie Beach Party next.
I’m from up north and miss lilacs. Can I grow them in Tampa fl
I love the ones I can cut. I love the smell
live in pot
I live in NorthTexas and in I to mail order lilacs. They are to be 24' to 48'. What I am wanting to know is will they be ok if I plant them in a bigger planter temporarily. Also since Tx is a hotter climate, what if any changes should I make in watering, shade or composting?
Thank you for your help and time.
North Texas lilac
The specifics of your question really pertain to the variety of lilac that you’re purchasing. Some are more tolerant than others. Check with the source (the vendor) about your zone and your plant’s zone for compatibility.
Lilac has small buds
My mom planted a lilac bush 20 years ago in the shade near a big pine tree and it had small buds and leaves and It didn't grow well. so last year I move it in the rock garden in front where it gets a lot of sun and gave it lime and compost and now there a more tiny buds forming along the old growth in tight clusters, so my question is will this lilac grow into a big bush again or should I replace it with a new bush.
20-year-old lilac
It sounds like the plant is coming back nicely. Only time—or information on the variety, if you have it—will inform you of it’s future shape. Give is TLC and a couple of years. Consider that transplanting anything introduces a certain amount of shock that it needs to get over. It sounds like your plant is adjusting nicely, so keep doing what you’re doing!
Lilac Bushes;
I would wait at least another year to see if next years Blossoms are bigger; which I think they will be; do not move or prune this bush until "later next Spring"; !!!
planting potatoes according to your calendar
The date given for planting potatoes in Lilburn, GA, according to your calendar, is April at the earliest. That is totally incorrect. Potatoes need to be planted at the end of Jan into Feb. The latest they should be planted is mid-March. Atlanta is far enough south that potatoes die off in July from the heat. They are a cool weather crop, so they need the earlier planting date. This common misinformation causes a lot of problems and failures.
potato planting date
The calendar above (see “Planting Times” with the faded-back grid and word “Example” across it) will give you the proper dates—exactly as you report.
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