Take cuttings of firm new wood. apply 0.3 to 0.8% IBA (rooting hormone) stick in well drained soil & mist takes 30-90 days to root

Wow that is funny, I've heard of Willow "fences" before but not lilacs. I have a lot of trouble propagating lilacs, people say it's easy but so far no luck. I was wondering if it's just harder to do with an older plant?

I am sure our plants are much older, (10 feet high maybe higher) But we have so much new growth its amazing. I am going to be working on this, this weekend....Thanks so much for all the help

I plan on doing this next week. My life-long friend and I are going to be digging up a baby smoke tree from her mom's yard. We grew up next door to each other and her mom still lives in her house. My house had numerous lilac bushes and I'm going to see how nimble I still am to reach over the fence into my old back-yard and snip a few branches. I've already purchased the root hormone powder.

I've found good information at this link... http://www.ipm.iastate.edu/ipm/hortnews/2003/6-6-2003/softwood.html

I'd also checked a plant propagation book from the local library and it basically says the same thing. Good luck to both of us! I just hope I'm agile enough still to get some good cuttings without "trespassing" on my old property. As a young girl I remember climbing the wooden fence and scaling the roof over our garage...those were the days!! ;-)

It may be off the subject(forum) but I have had great luck with root cuttings. They come up all around the bush. I even had some grow from seed.(Didn't plant them they just appeared in a pot sitting under the bush.

I've also heard that it can be difficult to grow lilacs from cuttings but what happened to me was I planted my lilac plant about 5 years ago. Each spring, I would cut off the sucker branches growing near the bottom of the plant so that it would grow up and out. Since disposing of garden waste isn't allowed in my city's trash pickup, I just stuck the branchs cut off into the ground around my lilac bush, figuring they'd die and then I'd get rid of them. Instead about 4 of them have rooted - now the problem I have is transplanting them because they're a little too close to my main plant.

I am new to this site so first I would like to say "HELLO" to everyone and thank-you in advance for any advise. I am trying to root some lilacs from cuttings, I believe I have found the "softwood" part even though I am still a bit confused on this. I dipped them in rooting hormone and placed them in vermiculite and covered them with a milky white plastic bag to hold in the moisture. My problem is when I checked on them the other day I found a fuzzy mold had grown on the tops where I had removed the dead buds. This is where I need your help, What do I do now??? Will this kill my chances of rooting the cuttings??? Thank-you for you help!!

that was a problem that i would have every now and again growing cuttings or seedlings. that fuzzy stuff is bad if you haven't figured out yet. you need to air it out more and use a fungicide

One of my friends had a lovely double white lilac, so I brought some cuttings home last spring. I probably had 6 or 8 starts I was trying. On a couple of starts, I had trimmed off short side buds from the hardwood part that was going into the ground. I took those same leaf/starts, dipped them in root tone, and put them in shallow pots as well.

The only lilac cuttings that took were 3 of the short leaf/starts. Everything else browned and died. I thought it was strange that just a lilac leaf was sticking out of the ground and staying green, but I left it alone. Would you believe that eventually it sent up a new single sprout/stalk? I now have 3 white double Lilacs, that have a single Âtrunk starting, at least 8-12 inches tall. This was a complete surprise to me as to what rooted. I have since transplanted these 3 to larger gallon pots.

When the cutting is cut

Do I leave it as it is ?

Or do I cut it a specific way?

After my propagation cut do I leave the bottom of the stem alone or do I cut it so it's open?

Any advice in this area ?

I did some clippings and dug some roots from grams lilacs .its a very mature lilac

Would really like to preserve her beautiful lilacs thank you for the help (y)