are you still limited to balcony gardening ...

if so.. unless you are trying bonsai.. you have no room for any lilac...

or forgive me for confusing you with that balcony lady ..

ken

Take no notice of Ken - you could keep a dwarf Korean lilac perfectly well on a balcony. The one I am most familiar with is the syringa meyeri 'palibin'...which can also do very well in pot culture.

What @rosaprimula UK (Cambridge) Z8/9 said. The dwarf versions of the "Bloomerang' series would also be good options for container growing, with the added benefit of a potential rebloom in late summer/early fall.

Also: the bloom time on the Korean lilacs (like 'Palibin' and 'Miss Kim'), while later than the standard lilacs, is not much more extended and certainly not "from May to July". My Palibins flower for a few weeks at most.

As RP notes, any dwarf form of lilac - like Miss Kim - is very adaptable to container culture. I would avoid the Syringa vulgaris cultivars and hybrids as they just get too large for a potted balcony garden and pruning will limit any flowering.

You should go to a local nursery when the lilacs are blooming and sniff test them. For me, I haven't met a dwarf that smelled as good as Syringa vulgaris cultivars. Also, I haven't met a lilac that blooms for more than two weeks - Bloomerang reblooms reliably in fall but the blooms only last a couple of weeks.

@ken_adrian Adrian MI cold Z5, I am definitely the "balcony lady." I had a very fragrant honeysuckle bloom at least twice on my balcony so I am not the one to give up on anything easily just because they get big. We will just call them bonsais potted in 5 gallon pots. :)

I actually was standing in front of gallon pots of these lilacs at HD. None except the Miss Kim were in bloom. Miss Kim was blooming away on 12" tall plants but unfortunately, I could not discern any fragrance even when I stuffed my nose in them. A large pot (4-5 gallon) of syringa-vulgaris-katherine-havemeyer was on sale for $12 (cheaper than the $13 for gallon pots of others listed above) and I was really tempted to bring it home with me. It took a lot of self-control to defer the decision to another day. I feel like give it a try with something in reach and a bargain is more sensible than spending $50 on a specific plant online (including shipping). Thoughts?

Ooh, I have Katherine Havermeyer - one of the pot escapees in my garden and I have to concede that it is a lovely lilac but seeing how much growth occurs in a single season, I don't think it would be really possible to keep this within any sort of acceptable size. I struggle to keep it within 7ft high and wide and if I am even a week or 2 off the needful pruning regimen, there are no blooms for me the following year (this year being one of them)...although, in a desperate move, I am about to render a completely brutal chopping this very week to restart the whole cycle as it is shading out my greenhouse, blocking my garden path and not even showing a worthwhile bloom. Mind, they are very tough plants - if I was really shameless, and more competent with PC stuff, I would post a picture of the disgraceful outgrown pot and vastly gnarly root which has squeezed out of the bottom and split the sides of its pot, and is currently thriving far too well in the cracked concrete path.

@rosaprimula, I would be growing in a pot so it would be naturally constrained.

Take no notice of Ken

==>> could you be any more rude???? ... agree or disagree.. fine with me.. but dont tell people to ignore others ... who left you in charge????

my dwarf paladin.. at 20 years.. is 6 feet tall.. and 15 feet wide. .. much smaller than the potential of other lilac ... but not tiny...if you can keep that in a pot.. on a balcony.. all the power to you ..

since you are the pot goddess.. you are well aware of the dwarfing potential of bonsai.. or repotting and root pruning your larger stock every other year or so ...

btw.. i saw a dwarf lilac at the local taco bell.. sheared into a 3 foot ball ... i would have never known it was a lilac .. had it not been in bloom.. wish i had snapped a pic... pointed out to the boy.. that it must be sheared at the proper time of year.. so as to not shear off next years buds.. which are on the plant in fall...

ken

O, I do apologise - it was a bit tongue in cheek and not meant to sound nasty or rude...I kinda thought you might appreciate a bit more robust chit-chat since you don't come across as a fragile sensitive type. I had no intention of coming across as any sort of expert here - I am often all over the place myself so it is quite rare for me to be insistent (or even consistent). Anyways, sorry.

Ah, there are lots of ways of gardening...I tend to be a bit more experimental and not feel too terrible when yet another plant fails to behave how I fondly (and erroneously) imagine. So I am inclined to take risks and am also susceptible to wild optimism (delusions). My fail list is not edifying. My neighbours, otoh, would never get rid a healthy plant (or even an unhealthy one if there is the tiniest sign of life). I have been, in turns, amused and incredulous at their lengthy mulberry saga. They bought the wrong one (a white mulberry instead of black) and have spent the past decade making mad attempts at grafting new scions onto a rapidly growing tree. If I was better at photos( and meaner), I would post some pics of the current iteration of 'grafting'. When I did tactfully and gently suggest replacing the mulberry, they still looked as shocked as if I had suggested torturing a kitten with blunt secateurs. At some point in the not too distant future, the mulberry is going to fill their entire, 4.5m wide garden anyway...and, no doubt, start in on mine...but ya know, treehuggers!

For anyone reading who is not limited by size, for fragrance nothing beats the good ol' fashioned common lilac, Syringa vulgaris. Tough as nails, too.

Yes, I have decided to give lilacs a pass for this exact reason. The ROI is too low. I have a herbaceous peony that has produced one bloom in 5 years, which lasted a week or so. I feel too invested to throw it away but this year it produced 11 stems and buds but zero flowers. The tiny buds simply refuse to grow...And I just got at an itoh peony for some dumb reason....