Planting and Care of Lilac bushes

Lilac bushes are easy to grow and long lived ! You will get more flowers if you choose a location for your lilac bush with at least 6 hours of strong sunlight.

Know the mature size of your Lilac, while there are several dwarf varities that grow less than eight feet tall, many Lilac plants can get to 12 feet or more and that wide also. Give them lots of room in the landscape.

Reticulata cultivars are trees maturing between 20 and 30 feet tall.

Plant Lilac bushes by digging a hole wider than the root ball of the plant. Place the lilac plant so it is at the same soil level as was in the pot. {Do not bury the trunk or stem.} Use a mix of compost and a little peat moss to fill in around the plant. Add a bit of lime. Keep well watered but not wet. Lilac plants need good drainage.

Be sure to use a mouse guard !

In this garden in mid Maine

the Lilac plants flower in this order.

• Hyacinthifolia
• Vulgaris
• Prestonia
• Josikea
• Meyeri Palibin and Patula
• Villosa
• Reticulata Lilac Trees

Lilac plants are perennials. Lilac bushes will be more at home in a field than under evergreen trees. They need the same growing conditions as Roses, not too wet and lots of sun.

Grass clippings make a good mulch for Lilac plants.

Lilacs are generally large plants, some are trees.

One cultivar of the Japanese lilac tree can get thirty feet tall.