You've had lilac blight confirmed by a lab report? or people online looked at a picture and said, this is it?

First, neem oil is not a dormant oil. Dormant oil, or horticultural oil, is just that.

Second, the first thing to do with any disease issue is practice good sanitation. I'll leave smarter people than me on the internet to explain that concept.

Third, if you are going to treat a problem, use the effective means. or cloud source via the internet and find out all the safe ways that won't work first.

Take white plastic buckets.

Throw white plastic buckets away.

end of problem.

Seriously, stop loving your plants to death.

Don't cover your lilacs with buckets. Do clean up all leaves and dropped twigs before snow flies and dispose of in the trash, not the compost.

I am assuming that you have had a confirmation that the problem is in fact lilac blight; I do remember a prior discussion of an issue with your plans but don't remember whether it was confirmed. If not get it confirmed before trying to treat something.

i have at least a dozen lilacs ... and other than watering at planting ... i have never done anything to them.. but curse them for growing like the weeds they are.. and turning into the huge shrubs they want to be ...

you are no colder than i am.. and your lilac do NOT need winter protection ....

personally i can not fathom wasting money on them for either sprays.. fert. or even water ... and boy did they look like heck after 3 6 week droughts this summer ... and the darn things will probably be another foot or two larger next year ...

how long have they been in the ground.. and why do they still fit under a bucket???? .. do the pails have big air circulation holes.. if not.. that is the problem ... plants need air... even in winter ...

ken

The buckets are not for winter protection; they're an easy way to protect them from voles and rabbits during snow cover. This is not about *loving my plants to death*, good grief. It's about them not being eaten! I've lost, in the past, hundreds of dollars worth of young plants from vermin. My xmas neighbor lost a thousand trees in one winter. That's why he got a rat terrier: to save his trees.

I lost all of my newly planted Burning Bushes from them. When it happened, I put pictures on here to show all the damage. Ken, these lilacs were only 6 inches tall when I planted them 4-5 months ago. They're about 12 inches tall or so. If any of you haven't dealt with voles, then you have no idea what it's like.

Dh said he'll use the spray. No, the blight was not technically confirmed in person, but I trust the people who said it was indeed that. I do know one of the lilacs had powdery mildew though. Dh pulled the lilac and I yanked out all the weeds around it that had the powder on them too. Then DH sprayed a copper spray all around the area.

Thank you, everyone, for your help.

Wire mesh rings work well to discourage voles and allow the plants to breathe. The issue with the buckets is that they pretty much seal in humidity, disease spores etc. and don't allow air exchange. I have bazillions of voles of 2 different species. I use 1/4" mesh. I usually bury the mesh a few inches since one of my species does tunnel under the soil surface and eat roots. I don't have rabbits, but chicken wire with a couple of stakes works for them and is less expensive for the taller part.

I have voles. I also have cats, hawks, foxes and who knows what else. The last thing you want to do is give the voles cover from those predators. I've learned I have to do a lot of cutting down and clearing out in the fall. Those buckets just sound like vole condos to me, complete with meal plan.

We used white buckets on a couple plants last year, with no problems whatsoever. Dh drilled small holes throughout each bucket for air flow, and we put a heavy brick on each bucket to keep them in place, and to prevent any animal from getting underneath them.

It took all of 1 minute to do, and it protected our plants throughout 5 months of 4ft of snow. Now, will I be able to use buckets when they get bigger? Of course not, then we'll use trunk protectors, like I did my 5ft lilacs.

We've done hardware cloth in the past, and we're not doing it again. It takes too much time, too much expense, and if the voles get underneath it, they have a nice condo and buffet for the winter. No thanks.

You threw away a lilac because it had powdery mildew? I thought that was a mostly cosmetic issue that posed no real danger to the plant? Aren't the leaves about to fall anyway?

I had exactly the same thought, illstep.

It was a tiny, $4 plant. It was hardly a big deal. And for young, newly planted shrubs, powdery mildew is often not merely a cosmetic issue. The powdery mildew was all over the area around it. It was the easiest way to get a handle on it.

My dh sprayed the Phyton 27 this weekend on our lilacs, and drilled 8 holes with a drill bit of 16/54 size, in each bucket, and placed the buckets on them, then added a 9lb brick on top. We're only doing it this way, this year. Next year they'll be too big for them, and will be the right size for trunk wrapping/protectors. A few hours later we saw our next door neighbor putting buckets on his lilacs too. Everywhere around here people are mowing, putting trunk protectors, tree wraps etc on their trees and shrubs.

Dh said the Phyton 27 was black and murky looking. He used a total of 1 gallon on the shrubs. He followed the guidelines of the EPA with regards to protections while using it. We actually saw a video on youtube of a girl spraying her Orchids with it, with no gloves or anything and it was on her upper floor apartment deck. The Phyton 27 was dripping down all over the place, to lower decks. Completely irresponsible, if not mind boggling.