Lilacs in Mid Atlantic- no bloom?

I have a now five year old and vigorous white Lilac that I got from 'hart' who had it, or a friend had it, in VA west of DC.
This lilac still shows no sign of buds but new growth is developing well. So are suckers. The bush is almost five feet tall now. Certainly bigger than in-bloom bushes I just saw at a nursery.
How long do I wait to see it bloom? Does it sound like maybe it won't bloom for me since I am a zone warmer probably, than the previous location?

If it won't, anyone 'colder' who wants to try can have it. Or I will pot up suckers from it

Hope all is well with 'hart' CHantell, glad you have been in touch; tell her hi for me if you have a chance.

Just read on garden web that many people have poor luck with lilacs in south.

Miss Kim IS recommended, RosesRREd you have that don't you?

Vitex is recommended by one as a substitute. I need to find those vitex seeds that speedie gave me, and try to sprout them.

Sorry, no comment on topic, but wanted to tell you Sallyg that I love the spider headed frog pic. So cute.....and you are so dear. Just love you gal.

Ruby

Sally, when do the buds form on lilacs? I have Becky's lilacs that have pretty leaves but show no sign of flower buds.

thanks Ruby- Good morning at ya!

Terry- I'm not sure since I haven't had a blooming lilac in years. I think they open in May. I have new growth on my bush and am pretty sure I would see signs of buds if not now then very soon.

I do have a newly gifted Miss Kim Lilac bush. I also have the common lilacs and, my favorite, Lilac Josee which is a repeat bloomer if it is deadheaded after the first bloom. All my lilacs bloom unless they have been pruned too hard. In this case it takes a few years for them to bloom profusely again.

Sally--here is what I know about lilacs--NOT much to help you:

--If they do not get enough sun--they do not bloom well
--They hate wet feet--so a spot with full sun and good drainage may help
--In older bushes--it is good to prune out (at the very base) the older branches and
allow the new suckers to grow.
--It is good to remove the spent blooms as soon as you can.
--When cooler weather nears--they are prone to powdery mildew on the leaves


I have an old French Lilac--which is beautiful when it blooms. Double, deep purple blooms..
It is probably 30 years old. It sits near my big maple tree--and now has the 6' fence my neighbor put up
tight against one side of it. Not enough light for sure.
I have ried, in the last years, to prune out some of the old, gnarly stems at the base.
not an easy job.
New shots are growing, but it will be a while before any of them are blooming size.

I wonder what lilacs should be fertilized with??? I have never done much of that...

Can't post a picture--I am at work!
Gita

maybe I just need more patience! The location 'should' be ideal and it's growing well and not big enough to need any pruning so has not been wrongly pruned.

Sally,
I have Miss Kim and Palibin - both bloom well for me and within a year or two after purchase. I found the fragrance on Miss Kim to be a little too musky for my taste, but the fragrance on Palibin is awesome. From what I know - Gita is spot on - they need sun and no wet feet. I have an old fashioned lilac in the shade - it has been there for 15 years and has never bloomed, but I know that it is just in the wrong location. If yours is in the right conditions, I'm not sure why it hasn't bloomed, maybe it is one of the cultivars that needs colder winters than what we are getting here.

Here is what my Lilac can look like--but this is from may, 2008

Hoping it will have lots of buds this year. I have had to cut off several dead branches
here and there. it may just be getting old--and, besides, having aa lot of root competition
from the maple tree just about 8' away.

We have a number of lilacs about the property that have bloomed well in the past, they have been pruned/thinned as always by have not bloomed in the past 2-3 years. I just don't think they are getting enough dormant cold time to for buds to form. The average temp. may not be changing significantly but the wide swings up and down maybe are having significant effects.

Ric--
I just ran out (Brrrrrrrrrr...) to see if there were any bloom buds
on my Lilac bush. I saw a few--not many--but I will have some...G.

I have read that to rejuvenate a lilac, in year one, cut back to the ground 1/3 of the shoots/stems, right after it flowers. Select the biggest stems for this cutback. Do the same in year two. Do the same in year three. This may temporarily affect flowering... We have a lilac, but flowering is minimal. We also have the lilac that Aspenhill gave me last year, which I am doing magical incantations over, in hopes that it will bloom....

Closer inspection revels a few, very few, buds forming. We often do cut some of the old growth annually so renewal should not be the problem. The wild variations in our cold weather dormancy is more likely the cause.

Ha ha, when I move to Vermont I shall enjoy the reliable blooming of the lilacs there!!

Ric, I'm with you on the enough cold for dormancy as a root cause of non bloom with this addition: it should be, I believe, an uninterupted period of enough cold (temperature and length of cold),
Zone 7 and above recently has "sporadic Winter" which is like insomnia for plants needing a long winters nap or at least some deep REM sleep! Zone 6 fares better in this regard, but not by much!

I also think that hot humid summers we have sap a lot of healthy robust growth potential from the plants we grow that would prefer a more Northerly clime ie, it may take a number of years for a plant to harden off to a new location and it may never get its timing in sync with the new neighborhood!

This message was edited Apr 22, 2013 10:48 AM

Sally, I remember reading somewhere the suggestion to have two lilacs as cross polination promotes more blooming. Thoughts?

Also that white ones are less prolific than blue? Seems so from childhood recolections...could gather arm fulls of blue for vases with one w hite per vase, How is yours doing?

Ok now- I know you must have given pause to that first thing. How can cross pollination encourage BUDS?? I ithnk somebody got their wires crossed with that theory
8 ^)

I USED to have a big blue lilac here, somesort of older cv probably planted forty years ago. It was removed for construction. And I figured since it got mildewy, if I ever needed another I would buy a better one. That's the extent of my experience with them. I'll go check again for buds.

Mine had two tiny blooms on it today--looks like that is all.

May be the 6' fence--even though the top of the shrub is above the fence.
Sure would like to dump some kind of a fertilizer on it---WHAT???

The maple is, probably, sucking the life out of it--but they have now co-existed for eons,
and the Lilac bloomed.
It is also possible that me cutting out the older stems has removed the "blooming stems".
Now we wait for the new suckers to grow big enough to bloom.
That must be IT! G.

I have a question. When Hubby and I moved into our cottage, there was an OLD row of blue and white Lilacs that was horribly neglected, was infested with Lilac Borers (had no CLUE about these gross beings), and long story short, although I cried, I got rid of the whole mess. That was a couple of years ago.
Is it ever safe to have Lilacs on our property again? Oh, I had them in youth, at my Grandmother's, and was so excited to have them again, and, well, you can imagine how I feel now. All this talk of Lilacs as me stirred up and in hopes of a future with them!
By the way, I marvel at how some Lilacs grow on their own, for years, at old house sites, and they just thrive on neglect. That is the kind that I THOUGHT I had! I keep reverting back to the old varieties of everything, it seems.