Hello everyone
I'm not a natural gardener, but now have a lovely garden which I'm taking care of. We have two white lilac bushes that have just flowered but whole sections of the branches and leaves appear dead, except that there are green shoots at the top of the dead areas. What should we do? We have taken one out completely, but is it possible to save the other. Please advise! I have a pictures but don't know how to attach it here! Many thanks in advance.
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The Helpful Gardener
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Hi Emma!
Kisal is right, and pics are great...
Sounds to me like it's old, and needs a rejuvenation pruning, and frankly it sounds very old, like it might not survive a rejuvenation pruning...lilacs like to break from the base and I know old clumps a hundred or more years old, because they were allowed to "sucker" or send up new shoots from the ground. Too many people (my mother would not let me prune her lilacs for years; "I don't want to hurt them") remove the new vital growth (lilac blooms best on second year wood) and keep the aging stuff. And lilac ages badly; it's the Keith Richards of the plant world. But like Keith, if you prune it back hard once and a while, it stays around forever...
Check out the lilac articles found on the Flower Gardening section of this website. Everything you need to know...
HG
Kisal is right, and pics are great...
Sounds to me like it's old, and needs a rejuvenation pruning, and frankly it sounds very old, like it might not survive a rejuvenation pruning...lilacs like to break from the base and I know old clumps a hundred or more years old, because they were allowed to "sucker" or send up new shoots from the ground. Too many people (my mother would not let me prune her lilacs for years; "I don't want to hurt them") remove the new vital growth (lilac blooms best on second year wood) and keep the aging stuff. And lilac ages badly; it's the Keith Richards of the plant world. But like Keith, if you prune it back hard once and a while, it stays around forever...
Check out the lilac articles found on the Flower Gardening section of this website. Everything you need to know...
HG