yes.. they should have been there since about last august ...

which leads one to wonder.. what you were doing out in this misery ... looking.. lol ...

even if its budding early ... there is nothing you can do ...

after last years misery ... most Ls of mine.. had lost the buds due to winter ... so i was looking forward to this years crop ... but for this winter.. which is worse than last .. crikey

ken

No, not meant to have a picture...cannot do that at this time. Thanks for the info that I am not really witnessing buds. I walk dogs for a living so there is no avoiding the cold! The bush is outside a client's home.

Difficult to kill lilac with cold temperatures. I've seen common lilac in Calgary with the buds literally bursting after a long warm winter Chinook come through the next sub-zero (F) cold snap without issue.

Ls are near impossible to kill ... because even if you run it over with a truck.. and kill everything above ... or use a chainsaw ... it WILL come back from root suckers ...

but .. the topic here .. is flower buds ... and they can be killed by a severe winter ... or even.. a severe drought the year prior ...

ken

"but .. the topic here .. is flower buds"

The OP didn't specify flower buds, just "tender green buds". Flower buds would be very premature so I'm guessing they're just the normal green winter dormant buds. Without a picture that's just an assumption, though.