Common or French lilacs (Syringa vulgaris) are known and loved by anyone living in the cooler regions of the country. Their intoxicating fragrance can permeate gardens and indoor spaces when the plant’s lavender blossoms open in midspring.
Color your garden with the reddish-purple flowers of ‘Frank Klager’.
Photo Credit: Lane Greer
Enjoy the clean white flowers of ‘Madame Lemoine’ in a sunny garden.
Photo Credit: Lane Greer
The hybrid lilac ‘Maiden’s Blush’ produces flowers about a week earlier
Photo Credit: Lane Greer
An old lilac favorite, ‘President Grevy’ bears blue-purple flowers.
Photo Credit: Lane Greer
Lilacs are easy to place in the garden. Most of them stand alone in the yard (sometimes at the corner of a house). They can also be placed in a shrub border or used as an informal hedge. And then you can move some indoors in the form of wonderful cutflowers.
The plant’s individual blooms can be either single- or double-flowered, although both are borne in panicles about 6-8 inches long. Single flowers look simpler and more old-fashioned, whereas double flowers create a very robust look.
But not all lilacs are lavender. Though seen less often, blooms can also be white or pink. In fact, some of my favorite lilacs have magenta or reddish-purple flowers. ‘Frank Klager’ and ‘Charles Joly’ are cultivars with dark reddish-purple flowers. The petals of ‘Sensation’ are wine-colored with white margins, and a very nice pink form is ‘Katherine Havemeyer’. White cultivars with single flowers include ‘Angel White’, ‘Avalanche’ and ‘Mont Blanc’. For double flowers, plant ‘Beauty of Moscow’ or ‘Madame Lemoine’.
If you want to keep with the more familiar lilac shades of purple, try ‘President Lincoln’ or ‘Yankee Doodle’ (both have single flowers). If you want double blooms, use ‘Adelaide Dunbar’ or ‘President Grevy’.
Hardy in zones 3-7, lilacs grow 8-15 feet tall and 5-15 feet wide. They like rich, well-drained soil and won’t tolerate heavy clay. (Soil pH between 6 and 7.5 is optimal.) Plant in full sun. Lilacs need about an inch of water every week. Fertilizers high in nitrogen cause plants to produce leaves rather than flowers. I recommend you apply a general fertilizer such as 10-10-10 in late spring, after the flowers have finished blooming.
If you’re looking for a spectacular planting combination, plant late-blooming tulips (like Triumphs) under your lilacs. For a long display of color, plant lilacs with earlier blooming shrubs like forsythia (Forsythia x intermedia) and later bloomers like butterfly bush (Buddleja davidii).
Cut lilacs make a wonderful addition to any room and last about a week. For longest vase life, harvest them when the flowers on the panicle (that’s the whole flowering part) are just starting to open. (For double flowered types, wait until ⅓ of the flowers have opened.)
The fragrance and long life of lilacs have made them popular for centuries, and they’ll continue to command a place in our gardens. They’re easy to grow, too – just plant and wait for a touch of old-fashioned spring romance!
