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lilac bush
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Posted by new1gardening MA (My Page) on Fri, Apr 18, 08 at 17:57
| I moved in to my current home one year ago. The woman who lived here before did an amazing job with the yard - I have been told that she was working on it nonstop. I had a baby last year so I didnt have any time to put into it and unfortunately this year I think its showing.
The lilac bushes are sparse and gray looking. Are they dead or are they supposed to look this way? Is there any food that I can give them to rejuvenate them? They bloomed last year but I noticed allot of dead branches in teh fall that I pruned but this week I noticed more so I pruned those too.
Another question, should we be putting mulch around the base of them? They are hard to mow around and it looks like they had put some before so today i edged around them and put mulch. How deep do their roots go? Is it ok to edge around them or will I hurt the roots?
Sorry, as you can see I am brand new to having a yard
Thanks
Any thoughts? |
Follow-Up Postings:
RE: lilac bush
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Good news and bad news.
First the good - a lilac still looks pretty sparse this time of year.
Bad news - you did not prune at the correct time and may have cut off some or all of the flower buds. You should only prune a lilac right after its blooms fade. I find cutting the flowers and bringing them in the house is a good way to achieve this. Since lilacs set their flower buds in the summer after bloom, any pruning you do may eliminate bloom. More good news - it is hard to do permanent damage to a lilac so you probably have a chance to do better this year. As for the mulch, I do some but not always. Lilacs will send out shoots very far from the plant so you will want to control them but only to the degree that you wish to control the size of the bush. I am currently letting mine have some "expansion space" to see what happens. WG |
RE: lilac bush
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| ok - thanks. So do you prune at the base of each flower? |
RE: lilac bush
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| Lilacs are vigorous shrubs that are hard to kill. It is said that if you deadhead the blooms, then they will put their energy into growth of new foliage and blooms and not seeds. A pruning book I own says this "remove the spent flower spikes just above the first leaves beneath the bloom clusters". Honestly, I usually deadhead the spent blooms I can reach, but once they get too tall and they're out of reach, I'm too lazy! Hehe Lilacs are lime-lovers, so I periodically sprinkle some lime around the base of the Lilacs. Wood ash would accomplish the same thing. Other than that, I mulch with some compost, and leaves. An old overgrown patch of Lilacs with thick, lanky stalks can be rejuvenated by thinning out 1/3 of the oldest wood each year for three years after blooming. Cut the stalks at the base. The suckers and smaller stalks will fill in nicely over the three year period. Sometimes people will "top" or shear Lilacs and I think it usually looks terrible. |
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