Why aren't my lilacs blooming????

[limewave]

Last night I walked through the neighborhood and everyone else's lilacs were starting to blossom and smelled so wonderful. A few weeks ago I planted some miniature korean lilacs. They haven't blossomed yet. I kill everything I plant :(

[mimitabby]

they might not bloom at all this year!
(they might have already bloomed before you bought them too)

[limewave]

I might have to wait 'til next year? Yikes.

[mimitabby]

you know, trees take longer. If you planted a nut tree, you might have to wait 50 years!

[SouthernBelle]

I planted a bare root lilac in 1999. This was first year it bloomed.

[7rider]

I love lilacs!
We just transplanted 2 from a shaded area to an area that gets more sun with better soil. DH read that when transplanting (and I imagine this means also from a pot), it can take several years for them to bloom!
Fortunately, ours popped out a few blossoms, but not many. Hopefully, next year, the shrubs will be fuller and they'll produce more.
Give 'em time.

[Grog]

A transplant is stressful (!) and blooming is demanding for the tree.

You'll have to be patient, I'm afraid...

[Aquila]

I'm lucky to have a lot of friends who've been slowly teaching me some gardening stuff, and happily, since I had a lilac in my yard, they taught me about that.

One thing to remember (my friends told me) is that lilacs only bloom on growth since the previous spring, so if you trim your lilac late in the summer or early fall, you're likely to trim all that growth and not get enough new growth to get blooms. My friends taught me to trim lilacs right after the blooming ends, so that they have all summer to put on new growth.

The transplant stress makes a lot of sense, too. Especially if they didn't get a chance to put on new growth, maybe?

Good luck with your lilac!

[Bikingmomof3]

Limewave,
My mini lilac trees are not doing as well this year. I do not know about MI, but here we had very unseasonably warm temps and everything began blooming early, then two freak days of freezing temps. We are back into the freaky warm temps (80s) and some of my plants are still recovering from a month ago.

[MomOnBike]

I don' t know why your lilac isn't blooming, but mine got caught in a late spring frost. I've had the thing 3 years, and it's yet to bloom for me. {sigh}

[mary9761]

the lilac is concentrating on rooting right now. often after a transplant or new plant, plants need to concentrate on putting down new roots instead of flowering. I planted a clematis one year and thought it died, the next spring it took off like crazy. good luck

[annie]

My Mothers Day gift 3 years ago was two lilac bushes. Little baby ones. :) This year, for the first time, they have some blooms. Heavenly scents! I love lilacs! I hope for more and more blooms each year.
Aquila - thanks for the hint on trimming! tho' mine are still to small to trim.

Annie

[annie]

Oops, double post. Sorry!

[mary9761]

just a hint to lilac lovers... Butterfly bush - or Buddleia is also known as summer lilac. There are many different colors available (my favorite is the deep purple Buddleia davidii. This makes a nice bush full of blossoms nearly all summer into the early fall and smells wonderful much like lilac. I do have to trim it back but it makes a beautiful bush all summer unlike just springtime.

[7rider]

We have about 6 butterfly bushes in our backyard. We chop them down to about 12" off the gound at the end of March and the amount of growth on them is amazing. They smell much sweeter than lilacs, but yeah, they bloom for ages and the butterflies love them. We've even seen hummingbird moths at them, which are really cool.

I've heard that lilacs can root from just a branch jammed into the ground. Is that true? I have one extra-tall spindly branch growing off one of my shrubs that I'd like to take down to add some symmetry to the 2. I'd hate to kill it, tho', and if it would root elsewhere, I'd stick it in the ground somewhere.