Wow Marilyn! Thanks for the tip. Lilacs are my #1 favorite. I hope someone responds with lilac knowledge and whether or not it's possible for them to grow here.
If so, I will run and not walk over to Target. Which area of the state are you from?
Thanks again,
Sue
(You would think if Target were selling them, they should be able to grow here in FL. Maybe it's a hardier version?)

Sorry ladies, sadly they will not grow in FL. I'm a former New Englander too and am learning to love what we can grow here.

I've heard crape myrtles called "Florida Lilacs". Of course that intoxicating fragrance is totally missing. cora

I bought a vine from Target a while back called St. Vincent lilac. It has small clusters of lavender flowers. It's not actually a lilac, but a member of the nightshade family. It's hardiness zone is actually 10-11.

I'm still intrigued. Even if this isn't by beloved lilac with the intoxicating smell that I remember oh-so-well. If it even closely resembles how I remember the blooms looked, well, it's going into my garden, somewhere.
Marilyn, is this the Target on Park Blvd. and Tyrone? I hope so. Only a 5 minute drive from here.
Thanks,
Sue
(On another note-the last time I was in NYC, last year, they sell lilac blossoms in most of the fresh flower corner bodegas. Brings back many nice memories...)

There's only one lilac I know of that may grow in Florida. It's called Blue Sky, I think. I bought one on-line about 5 years ago and did everything to keep it alive. It didn't grow, it didn't set the first blossom and it finally quit trying this spring. I had to respect it's wishes and let it go. I miss lilacs and if there's a new variety that may grow here I'll give it a try! Please let us know what you find out.

Kate

Sadly, I had the same experience as Kate. My mother ordered a lilac from mail order that was supposed to grow here (don't know the kind). It slowly declined even though she is a good gardner. Plants sometime seem to do better in my yard than hers because my soil is better, so I took it to see if I could save it. It still died. I would love to hear if another variety works!

I just saw a show on HGTV that said a new variety was being developed to with stand heat, but I don't know if they meant Fl heat. :o) Most varieties need a good number of chill hours and even frost to grow well.

It looks like there may be a few more varieties developed for z9. MarilynP do any of these names match the ones for sale at T?

Southern Lilacs

Kate

WHAAA I LOVE LILACS, Can't they extend their tollerance to Zone 10? They can get to zon 9...c'mon, it's only one more zone!

Me too, Cindee. I had several in NJ, deep purple, lavendar and white. The fragrance was wonderful.

I'm in the colder part of zone 9 closer to 8 and the Blue Sky Blue Lilac that they say will grow in zone 9 did not thrive here. Sorry to say that even tho it was pampered no luck.

Seems like the big box stores couldn't care less about what will grow in a certain place just what they can Sell. Stores have been doing that as long as I can remember. My Mom keep trying to grow gardenias bought in Albany Ny when I was a kid.

This is a link to a discussion on the Southern Gardening forum about lilacs. It includes some photos that will make you crazy with lilac longing.

Here is a link that might be useful: Southern Gardening Forum - Lilac Discussion

Oh man, her last 2 photos made my heart skip a beat!! Thanks Kate.

Hi Everyone, Well, I never expected a response like this!! WOW!! I will try to find out more today, I work from 10 to 6. The store I work in is the one on 9th St North. I will look more closely at the tags on the Lilac's and get back to all of you tomorrow. I am definately going to have to buy one and at least try!! I also have such wonderful memories of Lilac's in my parents yard in MA!! I will write on Sat., till then..happy planting! MarilynP

I have a friend in the extreme northern part of the state near the Georgia border who grows lilacs. They don't bloom as prolifically as they do up north, but they do bloom. I wouldn't try them any further south, though. She has hers on the east side of her house, where they are shaded in the afternoon, and she says they take lots of water in the summer, and they don't throw out as many runners as they did up north.

I am a transplanted Upstate New Yorker who lives in Florida. Crape Mertle in no way compares to lilacs; they look a bit like lilacs for a distance but they have a nasty smell. But i did a search on line and i found some species of real lilacs that do grow in the FL climate. I'd been told that lilacs didn't grow in FL, too, because they need a cold winter, but evidently they have developed some that don't need that .... in fact, i am on line now with the purpose of purchasing one of these for my home. I hope that helps lilac lovers who live in FL (i know that i am looking forward to my lilacs).

There is a beautiful lilac that grows perfectly in Central Florida. I think it is the Ivory Silk Lilac. We have several blooming right now and they smell wonderful!

I live in Jacksonville. I have a lilac bush growing in my yard. I started growing it from a sapling (correct word?) I got from Mackinack Island, Michigan. I started it in a pot when I lived in Georgia. They said it would not grow there. In the winter, I would wrap it in wet newspaper and put it in the garage refrigerator. I would repot it in the spring. I did this every year until it was too big to put in the refrigerator. Then I just left it in the pot; however, on winter nights/days, where it would go below freezing, I would water it. I did get blooms on it ine year. Once I moved to Florida, I had it planted in the ground because I have no intentions of moving again. It is growing just fine, but other than the one year, no blooms.

This post was edited by sayersdl on Tue, Aug 26, 14 at 13:56

Because we live in a warm-winter climate and can't get lilacs to bloom, try one of the Descanso Hybrids of S. vulgaris. Developed in Southern California, these hybrids are especially well suited to winters with little or no frost.

I put a link to some info on a few low-chill Lilac varieties you might be interested in trying in your area.

Lou

Here is a link that might be useful: Low Chill Lilac info

THERE's also lilacs that grow in CA. They are a evergreen shrub..but blue flowers all summer.

Growing Lilac (Syringea vulgaris) in Southern California ...

Lilac Plants for Florida : Garden Guides
⦠⺠Lower South Gardening
Lilac Plants for Florida. A staple in northern climates, lilacs (Syringa) are a deciduous shrub that produce a fragrant, cone-shaped cluster of flowers in purple or ...

Never say never. I love to experiment. I brought back an Iris from NE and read that it would not flower here because of the heat. Well guess what. It did...although the flower life was not a long one.

This post was edited by little_bee on Fri, Dec 5, 14 at 21:28

Hi. I am in Zone 9b, the southern part of the zone (Spring Hill, FL)... there are a few varieties of lilac which are reputed to grow and bloom well in my area. The most readily available seems to be 'Josee', a trispecific hybrid, dwarf bush, said to be everblooming. I have ordered it a few times: unfortunately, the plants received appeared to be quite small seedlings, and when planted out in the landscape, did not establish quickly enough, and died. Perhaps if I had kept them in pots for another year or two... it would be great if more mature, stronger plants were available, which might be better equipped to survive the admittedly harsh climate (harsh for lilacs!) here. I love lilacs, so I will try again... there is also a new (or newly rediscovered) cultivar of "old-fashioned" lilac (Syringa vulgaris) called 'Snowy Beach Party', a true, white-flowered bush which is said to grow and bloom even in Zone 10! It was available from Spring Hill Gardens (out of stock now but I suspect it will be in stock again), and also from Michigan Bulb Company.... I suspect these will also be small seedlings, but am planning to try them: perhaps planting one out, and keeping the other in a pot, to compare their progress (if any!)-- there are several other varieties of S. vulgaris which are reputed to grow in zone 9, but often it's in California (where the drier ambient humidity would make them less vulnerable to fungal or other diseases): in Florida, the problem is not only the lack of chilling to promote blooms, but also the hot sticky summer nights, which can induce the growth of pathogens, as well as simply exhausting the plant's vitality. In any case, one can read about them (google "Heat tolerant lilacs" or "lilacs zone 9")--- some sound heavenly, but I don't recall seeing any of them for sale recently.

Happy gardening!

I wish lilacs would grow and bloom here. They are my favorite shrub from when I lived up north but they don't. Unfortunately, big box stores don't care too much about whether plants will make it in a given zone. They only care about selling them. My hubby works at one of them and asked the plant manager once why they sell plants not suited to our area and she said, so what, people buy them, plant them, they die after a while and they come back and buy more plants.

If you want to know if something works in your area ask a reputable garden center.

Me again... just a note to mention that I did have some success growing the 'Josee' hybrid Syringa. I got two plants, both only a few inches tall. Both were planted out on the west side of my house. One promptly gave up the ghost. The other lived. It grew slowly, but I actually got some flowers when it got to be only five inches tall! I was watering it every other day (it was early summer). Then I was in the hospital for more than a fortnight, and when I got home it had died. The flowers were not precisely like the old-fashioned lilacs of the north, and the scent was nice but not the same... still, it gives me some hope about the newer heat-tolerant varieties coming. (Spring Hill, FL)

Oh, by the bye: the plural is "lilacs", not "lilac's"... sorry, but that's rather a bete noire of mine. Thanks!

There are so many lovely, fragrant plants that WILL grow here; gardenias, brugmansias, daturas, jasmines, gingers, michaelia, Ylang Ylang and the native Simpson Stopper to name a few. I've learned to just love what I can grow and forget trying to grow northern plants. When I moved to SW FL from SC, I brought a forsythia with me. It grew, but never bloomed. I finally gave up and tossed it. I also brought daffodil bulbs, which also never bloomed, so I tossed them too. I had an orange jasmine planted right outside my back porch that I adored because it smelled so luscious. No, we can't have lilacs, and the big box stores are going to play on your sentimentality for northern plants by offering those and hostas and bulbs every year, but don't be fooled. It's just a waste of time and money.

I've been waiting for someone to make this point^. Man, you guys are in Florida! Grow stuff that grows there! Or move back to teeth-chatterin country.

Just to disagree a tad with what Dirty said, I don't think the big box stores play on sentimentality so much as they really just don't worry about it. Target and Walmart are prime examples of how not a whole lot of tailoring goes into store stock. Their inventories tend to follow the seasons of Temperate America and not that of Florida. I was at HD this morning and looked over their veggie seed display and noted that they had all sort of starts for bulb plants, ornamentals, onions, garlic, etc. Many of the ornamentals wouldn't grow or grow well here, and most of the veggie starts you wouldn't want to mess with until next fall, yet when next fall rolls around, these won't be available.

As a transplant from the lilac city of Rochester NY, lilacs are part of my DNA! It has taken 5 years, but my Lavender Girl variety is growing well and producing small clusters of tiny flowers. Each year there are more and the prospect of this becoming a hardy bush look good. Nothing thrills me more than smelling the flowers each May.

I live in the Fl Panhandle, zone 8. We had a very mild winter this year, but the small clusters continue to bloom. I fertilizer with a general organic blend and water once a week if it does not rain. Don't give up fellow lilac lovers

! It can be done!

Nothing smells like lilacs. That's why we all want to bring the fragrance here to FL

So I looked up lilacs that grow in zone 9 as I live in zone 9a and Lavender lady lilac popped up as a Lilac that would grow... This was a Christmas gift for my mother in law for she lived in Long Island New York.. She asked for Lilac.. So I was able to purchase Lavender lady lilac plant from Amazon.com... Paid $60 for 2.. When I received them they were only cuttings from the plant which were only 4inches in height...this was Christmas 2016 and as of May 2017 this is what 1 of the 2 plants I got have grown.not the tray but the plant in the circular pot

I hope it continues to grow.. Here is the second plant..it doesn't look to be doing as good but I'm gonna be hopeful that it survives...

I forgot to mention that they both were purchases because she has a house in north Florida just up the road from me. Yulee/ Fernandina Beach florida

I live in NE and have beautiful lilacs in my yard. We are soon moving to FL & so sad that I can't grow Lilacs there.

Old thread, but I’d try Ceonothus otherwise known as California Lilacs. They aren’t real lilacs but are still shrubs that bloom at the same time with similar looking fragrant flowers