Trimming Lilacs

7 years ago

last modified: 7 years ago

I have Beauty of Moscow and Sensation lilacs and I'm pretty sure they are too tall and lanky. I have trimmed old fashion lilacs before, quite severely, as they required it at the time but I am hesitant to mess with these two varieties. They don't seem to sucker like my old fashioned lilacs and I would be upset if I killed them. I planted them 6 years ago and bought them from a nursery and assume they were probably 2 to 3 years old when I purchased them. You can see from the pictures how much taller and lanky-er they are than the old fashioned lilacs right next to them. Suggestions?

Featured Answer

gardengal48 (PNW Z8/9)

7 years ago

Both are also "old fashioned" or common lilac cultivars - Syringa vulgaris - and so can be pruned in the extact same manner as you would any other common lilac variety. Different cultivars can and often do grow to different heights....both of those tend to be in the 12-15' range.

The sooner after the blooms finish you can prune, the better the chances the shrub will flower well next season.

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Comments (6)

Rinnie
Original Author
7 years ago

Incorporating Nature · More Info

Incorporating Nature · More Info

Incorporating Nature · More Info
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ken_adrian Adrian MI cold Z5
7 years ago
measure the largest width of any trunk ... lets say... its one inch ...

remove all one inch trunks ... down to about 3 inches.. or as low as you can get ... those will reprout this summer ... remove about 1/3 of the largest one ...

next year .... remove the next one third ... they will reprout ...

repeat ad nauseum ... with continual rejuvenation ... the first vid isnt too bad: https://duckduckgo.com/?q=rejuvenation+pruning+of+lilac&t=ffcm&iax=videos&ia=videos

with no insult to the root mass... you might be surprised how fast it can regrow ...

ken
Rinnie thanked ken_adrian Adrian MI cold Z5
User
7 years ago
When I first moved here, about 6 years ago, there were lilac hedges, on one side of the yard, so tall the stems were bending over and falling out into the yard and touching the ground. Made mowing up to the base of the hedge impossible. Many of the stems were 1-3" at the base.

To avoid a long drawn out procedure, I took the chain saw and cut everything down at the base, to about 1-2" high.

By fall, I had a nice, thick 2 ft. high hedge going and I believe by the next year, 3-4 ft, high and a fair amount of blooms. Still nice hedge that has went over my head again but a lot more upright and full.
Elaine Ricci
7 years ago
No real advice, but you bring back memories. When I was a young kid 45 years or so ago, my best friend had a lovely lilac tree in her yard -- the perfect climbing tree. At some point, her next-door neighbor, an elderly woman, had most of the branches lopped off. That is one of my earliest memories -- if not the earliest -- of being outraged by someone's despoiling of nature.
User
7 years ago
Some of us have neighbors concerns to think about, when our long since overgrown plants encroach on their property by several feet. And I don't think something that's been planted between two yards is really considered 'Nature'.

Not to mention is was a tornado that left the hedge in such disarray, broken and distorted. How's that for nature?

The place looks much better now that the house has been rebuilt and all the debris has been cleaned up and the hedge rejuvenated and allowed to grow back 'Naturally'.