I have a problem with my lilac bush. We moved here about 5 years ago and the bushes were here for years before we moved in. I prune them and and do some fertilizing. The problem is some of the bushes are dying. At the base of the bush there is fungus all around the base of the bush. Is there some kind of solution to kill the fungus.
J. Davis
Hi J.,
You don't say what the fungus looks like, what you are using to fertilize or how you are pruning. Do you have any pictures of the fungus or can you describe what it looks like - hard and crusted, color, smell, etc? Is the fungus on the ground, on the mulch or on the trunks of the shrubs?
Lilacs generally don't need fertilizer and do well in soil enriched with organic matter such as compost. Adding too much nitrogen fertilizer will cause more leaf growth at the expense if flowers.
There are basically two ways to prune lilac. Remove the spent flowers within two weeks after bloom as they set their buds about that time for next years blooms. To rejuvenate older shrubs, the oldest trunks are pruned flush to the soil. It's best to cut 1/3 of the oldest limbs each year for 3 years so as to not shock the plant. It takes about 5 years or more for new sprouts to bloom. Here's some helpful sites about growing your lilacs.
Pruning:
https://www.gardenersnet.com/lilac/lilac02.htm
https://www.ipm.iastate.edu/ipm/hortnews/1993/2-10-1993/lilac.html
Growing:
https://lilacs.freeservers.com//lilac_tips.html
Please let us know about the fungus.
Newt
You don't say what the fungus looks like, what you are using to fertilize or how you are pruning. Do you have any pictures of the fungus or can you describe what it looks like - hard and crusted, color, smell, etc? Is the fungus on the ground, on the mulch or on the trunks of the shrubs?
Lilacs generally don't need fertilizer and do well in soil enriched with organic matter such as compost. Adding too much nitrogen fertilizer will cause more leaf growth at the expense if flowers.
There are basically two ways to prune lilac. Remove the spent flowers within two weeks after bloom as they set their buds about that time for next years blooms. To rejuvenate older shrubs, the oldest trunks are pruned flush to the soil. It's best to cut 1/3 of the oldest limbs each year for 3 years so as to not shock the plant. It takes about 5 years or more for new sprouts to bloom. Here's some helpful sites about growing your lilacs.
Pruning:
https://www.gardenersnet.com/lilac/lilac02.htm
https://www.ipm.iastate.edu/ipm/hortnews/1993/2-10-1993/lilac.html
Growing:
https://lilacs.freeservers.com//lilac_tips.html
Please let us know about the fungus.
Newt
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hopingforhelp
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- Location: Madison, WI
I've just come in from a springtime assessment of my yard and garden where I was surprised to find a great deal of fungus growing on my lilacs. So I did a search and found this forum. I noticed a little bit of the fungus growing on the trunks last year, but now there is ten times more. It is white and light grey. Scale looking on the lower part of the trunks. Then it sort of flattens out. It's hard to describe. They're shaped sort of like the visor of a baseball cap and grow in rows up the trunk.
I could take a photo but I wasn't sure if I could post photos.
I haven't been fertilizing. The "shrubs" look more like trees (12-16 feet tall) and I've been taking out a third for the last three years to get them under control. Which for the most part seems to have worked well. Although I couldn't always cut right down to the ground, I got as low as I could. I noticed new growth isn't coming out of the stumps that have the fungus.
Any idea where it came from and how I can make it go away?
I could take a photo but I wasn't sure if I could post photos.
I haven't been fertilizing. The "shrubs" look more like trees (12-16 feet tall) and I've been taking out a third for the last three years to get them under control. Which for the most part seems to have worked well. Although I couldn't always cut right down to the ground, I got as low as I could. I noticed new growth isn't coming out of the stumps that have the fungus.
Any idea where it came from and how I can make it go away?