How To Care For Lilacs

[Music Playing] David Epstein: I got a lot of questions from many of you about lilacs and it is a very popular plant, a lot of people have this in their gardens. So, I brought Wayne Mezitt, we missed it from of most nurseries, and we are going to talk today about sort of care of these really pruning and how to keep them nice and bushy and flowery. What do we want to do? Wayne Mezitt: You can see that flowers are turning brown here so, it is time to start dead heading. Which is to take the flowers off, so they will not produce seed and then we will put strength into the growth. And, the other thing that we want to do is to make this plant as bushy and as wide as possible because most people wanted a dance plant. Left on its own, this plant will grow 15 feet, maybe even more. And we probably want to keep it for most home owners at least want to keep it smaller than that. David Epstein: How much can I cut off? Wayne Mezitt: The rule is you can cut of about a third of the growth each year. And what you do, with the older, the biggest, oldest, tallest stem is to cut them back to the ground or six inches or foot high and that encourages the growth on the existing plant. Once you did not cut back to grow and it also encourages the succoring. The succors that we got growing down here are helpful to make it bush out and for more stems that will make plant denser. David Epstein: When you say cut the third off, do I cut the third of the top from the top down or is it third from the ground, take the third from the whole plant out? Wayne Mezitt: If you count the number of stems, and this one is six stems or so, if you want it to reduce the size of this, you had to cut out one third of the number of those to the base. So, if this is six stems, you cut two off them back. David Epstein: So, surely it is going to take three years to bring that plant down to a more manageable level? Wayne Mezitt: You can do it in two years, but the safest way is three years. David Epstein: So, this time of the year, should we be fertilizing or doing anything else to maintain the plants? Wayne Mezitt: This is the good time as the bloom finishes on my life to fertilize them. And you want to use an organic fertilizer that is slow release and a couple of handful arounds\ the base and some lime as well. David Epstein: Great. So, you have learned a lot of how to take care of your lilacs as one of course is just about gone by still a bit fragrant. Lots of information here, hope you come back often at growingwisdom.com. [Music Playing]