Haha. Oh well. So how about the lack of buds?

i noticed the other day ... that i am having a very weak lilac show this year .. across all my Ls ..

sometimes the somewhat mild winters are worse than the really cold winters ...

and youre a bit vague on this.. but if you keep moving them around.. that could stunt getting established and putting on a big show ..

ken

My Boomerang Lilac took 4 years before it decided to start blooming.Central NC.

Could I contribute some ’l’s to the discussion? I think your spell checkers have stolen them.

My Bloomerang doesn't bloom spectacularly, and it's still pretty small, but it does bloom. It gets much smaller blooms than the rest of them, though, and it's definitely in full sun. As for reblooming, well, it's even lamer if it does, but it sometimes does get one small rebloom. I think it bloomed like the year after it was planted, though it has had some issues with damage ... little bit winter damage, lotta bit deer trampling.

My Sensation took two or three years to start its blooms, and Madame Lemoine (white French lilac) is still waiting to reach bloom size (purchased same time as Sensation and planted within feet of each other, but purchased slightly smaller). Commons depend on size of the transplant and how long it was in a pot for how long they pitch a fit before flowering. Our nameless whites pouted longer than the commons when moved (like at least five years of protest, though some years, like last year, don't count because almost nothing flowered with late freeze timing).

I agree, though, those leaves look more like my common, Sensation, and white lilacs than Bloomerang. Bloomerang has little leaves.

Could be that it is competing for nutrients with other trees in the vicinity or it’s not getting full day (6+ hours) of direct sun. is your soil too acidic? Adding some sweetener can help in that case. The lush look indicates plant is healthy and may be getting too much nitrogen?

As others correctly pointed out doesn’t look like a bloomerang lilac.

I own one that I ordered from Burpee back in spring of 2016. It was barely 6” talk back then. but it did decide to bloom in November with a tiny bunch of may be 10 flowers. I was thrilled nevertheless. I noticed it had much tinier flowers as compared to my other traditional lilac that came with the house. Leaves too are smaller in size compared to the traditional Syringa.

Here is my experience with the bloomerang:

the plant bloomed scantily in the following spring (2017), no bloom in fall and was about 1.5 feet tall with two scraggly branches at the end of fall. It looked like something that would take zillion years to attain full size.

I decided to remove all creeping ground covers from underneath, added some wood ash from our fireplace and mulched the plant with about 2” regular mulch.

Over following two springs it grew to about 3 feet height with decent amount of flowers. No fall bloom again. But the next spring (2020) it went on a growth spurt and was about 5 feet tall by beginning of summer. Flowers were impressive yet nothing like what I saw in pictures. I lightly sheared the plant after first flush of blooms and got noticeable fall blooms.

What happened this year is simply spectacular- finally the plant has established itself to its full glory- already over 6 feet tall and literally covered in clusters of deep purple flowers which are perfuming my entire backyard with honey -nectar kind of fragrance. blooms tend to start opening two weeks after the traditional lilac and smell much sweeter. This time it peaked long after the other lilac blooms died. As a result I am enjoying an amazing lengthy lilac season. From the look of it I will get at least another week of decent flowering out of my Bloomeran.

I am in Zone 6b (NJ) with alkaline leaning soil. I don’t fertiliz the plant and did not add anything but the wood ash 4 seasons ago. But my soil has plenty of organic matter and worms everywhere. May be that did the trick. I also must note that I created a bed for this plant out of compact lawn area by my brick patio and it gets full day of sun (9 hours or more). No taller tree in the vicinity.

You can try digging around the plant at about 3 feet radius and remove any tree root you may find. I did the same with my other lilac as it was not blooming even after getting 5 hours of sun when we bought the house. That seemed to have helped (and a handful wood ash of course). after digging add 2” layer of compost mixed with 2-4 tbs organic bloom booster like Dr. Earth’s. If you notice any arching branch hanging right over the lilac, cutting those back should also help. I don’t know the scientific reason behind, but tree branches directly on top of a shrub seems to obstruct growth even if the plant gets plenty of sun - but that’s my observation.

Hopefully these steps help set buds and we get to see a picture of your blooming syringa next season.

here are some pictures of my slow-but-steady bloomerang:

May 4: buds ready to open

May 17th - almost peaked

And lo, this year the crazy little thing has gone all out!

Please disregard the grass in there ... we haven't gotten to dealing with this bed, yet.