li-lacking

[banjololo]

In search of kind gardener souls to offer a tip with these poor lilacs! They've had some bad prunes in their time. I'd like to help them out! The art of pruning is still pretty new to me, and I am a bit stumped (har har har) in this case

Comments

[stmaybe]

an article on lilac pruning

a lilac came with the house i bought 3 years ago now, and i really ought to learn to care for the thing. so thanks for the reason to finally look up lilac pruning.

[banjololo]

thanks. I did look up general lilac pruning, but didn't find anything specific to my situation.

[banjololo]

thank you so much. I think this is really helpful.

[banjololo]

Do you think I should take out the sucker shoots that grow from the trunk base? Pruning guides say to do this, but I'm wondering if the trees would be happier to let them grow (since they want to be much taller than we let them get), or maybe it would assist with the hedgey shape we're going for? Since we don't want open tree shapes, it shouldn't matter if they only have one trunk?

Also-- you say to take out too-tall growth from the branch base, but if we let them grow, the shoots from the top ALL get too tall. Should I still take out the whole thing? Or just head them back to an offshoot?

[low_delta]

Since they were hacked off strangely, I would leave the suckers to grow. The best lilac bushes I've seen have many stems. I have seen only a few with single trunks, and they're very cool, but I'm not sure you can pull off that look, considering how they've been hacked up.

I would guess that by "too tall" she means any branches that grow above the rest.

[mshrmit]

http://awaytogarden.com/pruning-lilacs

This is one of my favorite gardening blogs. Also, if they are your trees, the neighbor isn't allowed to prune them at all, although I could understand trimming the parts that are in his yard.

[banjololo]

thanks! Ah yes, but he's a 76-year-old widower who married my parents 30 years ago. I'd much rather take the "Thanks for all the pruning! You don't even have to do it anymore!" approach. ;P

[mshrmit]

Gotcha. We have neighbors like that.