How to Plant, Grow and Care for Lilac Bushes

When to Plant Lilac?

• The best time to plant Lilacs in the garden is in spring or fall.

Where to Plant Lilac?

• Most Lilacs perform well in USDA Zones 3-7, depending on the species. Not sure about your growing zone? Check here.
• Lilacs are easily grown in full sun (at least 6 hours of sunlight daily) in fertile, humus-rich, neutral to alkaline, and well-drained soil.
• Lilacs grown in partial sun or shade will not flower well.
• Lilacs thrive in sandy-gravelly loams that have excellent drainage. they will not tolerate heavy clay.
• Lilacs are very versatile. They make great border shrubs and are commonly used as screens, hedges, or specimens. Dwarf Lilacs are suitable plants for small gardens and even containers.
• Surrounding your Lilacs with a succession of flowers and foliage plants will reinforce the beauty of their blooms and extend the season of interest in your landscape. Here is the list of favorite companion plants for your Lilacs: conifers, flowering crabapples, flowering dogwoods, flowering cherries, magnolias, peonies, hemerocallis.

How to Plant Lilac?

• Dig a hole, about twice the root ball.
• Enrich the soil at the bottom with organic matter.
• Set your Lilac in the planting hole and add additional rich soil to cover the crown, mounding the lilac very slightly.
• Space your Lilacs 5-15 feet apart (150-450 cm), depending on the variety.
• Water well around the plant after planting.
• Spread mulch around the plant to keep moisture in and weeds out. This will also provide winter protection for the roots.
• Your Lilac bush may take three to four years to establish itself, but once established it can live for centuries.

Lilac Care

Watering

• Water regularly throughout the summer to keep the soil lightly moist.
• Established Lilacs typically will only need watering during periods of drought.

Fertilizer

• Lilac bushes do not need a lot of fertilizer or feeding.
• Use a balanced fertilizer annually in the early spring, especially if you have poor soil.
• Make sure not to over-fertilize as this can reduce flowering.

Pruning / Deadheading

• Lilacs are greatly improved by annual pruning. Pruning encourages flowering and ensures adequate air circulation.
• Lilacs bloom on old wood, therefore the right time to prune is just after flowering is over.
• Remove diseased, damaged, congested, or crossing shoots. Thin suckers and all twiggy small branches.
• Cut out 1/4 to 1/3 of the oldest branches and suckers each year. This enables your Lilac bush to renew itself with strong canes every 4 years.
• Remove all but the strongest suckers, leaving them to replace older canes.
• Remove some of the height so that your Lilac bush does not become a tree and the blooms are at eye level.

Propagating

• Lilacs can be propagated from seed, cuttings, layering, grafting, or budding.
• Cuttings and layering offer the best results.
• The best time to propagate is in the late spring to early summer.
• Propagation from cuttings:
• Choose strong new growth with about 4-5 pairs of buds.
• Cut the base of the cutting just below the lowest set of leaves.
• Remove the 3 lowest pairs of leaves at the bud juncture.
• Insert the cutting into a rooting compound, keeping the uppermost pair of leafless buds at ground level.
• Cut half of the remaining top leaves.
• Propagation from layering:
• If a branch is close enough to the ground, nick the bark in 2 or 3 places, preferably below a leaf bud, and apply a rooting compound on the wounds.
• Cover the branch with 3-4 in. (7-10 cm) of soil and keep it moist to promote root formation.

Pest and Diseases

• Lilacs can stand a great deal of abuse and attacks of pests and diseases and come back if provided adequate treatment.
• Keep an eye out for lilac leaf-mining moth, privet thrips, lilac blight, honey fungus, Phytophthora, and Powdery mildew.