Middle-aged Lilac

This year, Before

OK, I’ll be honest, I don’t know how old this lilac is.  It still has the very slender trunk of a young lilac, but it’s covered in lichen and the twigs at the tips tend towards brittleness (especially when they are dead) giving the whole thing a slightly elderly appearance.

When I came to prune it this year I was really struck by how all the spent blossoms were concentrated on the east side of the plant; the side that gets all the sunlight.  Not that I should have been surprised by this, lilacs don’t bloom well in the shade; it was just the difference between knowing a fact and experiencing it.  This certainly made my decisions very easy; I clearly needed to bring the whole thing down to below the level where the neighbours maple was creating shade.  In it’s rush to grow tall, it had grown up into an area of dense shade, which I think accounts for it’s slightly wispy look.  Actually, it would be more accurate to say I knew I needed to bring down the side in the shade, and then bring down the side in the sun to balance the look and make sure the light was not blocked from reaching the western half of the plant.  

Last year, Before

Last year, After

I got started pruning and then had a ‘didn’t I make this same observation last year’ moment.  Once I got home, I looked at my photos, and it’s sort of hard to tell.  I did bring the height down somewhat last year, but primarily to get the plant to be less straggly, although it’s kind of hard to tell with the photographs.  All the foliage behind make it hard to tell where the lilac begins and ends.  That, of course, if part of it’s problem – too much shade.  Clearly, however, I wasn’t bold enough.

This year, After

This year, the cutoff points seemed much clearer, and I got far more drastic.  It helped that on both of the main stems there were side branches lower down that gave me somewhere to cut back to.  Anyway, here is the final result.  I think I got a good balance, at any rate there is now sky between the lilac and  the maple.

Young Lilac

I got this lilac on sale a number of years ago, so I’m guessing it is about a decade old or so; still very young as lilacs go.  It turned out to be a fancy-schmantzy variety with clusters of blooms so large and heavy that the stems can barely hold them up, and they flop over and threaten to break off.  Sometimes bigger is not better, but it’s a beautiful lilac all the same.  When I placed it in the middle of the bed that seemed sufficient space for it to grow – not too near to the fence, not too near to the lawn; but in retrospect I probably should have given a bit more space from the fence.  This is somewhat ironic as one of the things I encounter the most as a pruner is shrubs that have been planted too close to a wall/other shrub/fence so that you’d think I’d know better.

Before

As young as this lilac is, it has already developed a distinctive list to port.  As soon as it gets above the top of the fence and realizes that there is more sun over there to the west it leans into the light.  There was more sun from the east when I planted it, but a Norway maple got past my defenses and is now creating rather more shade in the back than I would have liked.  The resulting curve is not unattractive, but it puts the upper branches within easy reach of the local wildlife thoroughfare – aka the top of the fence – hence there is some squirrel damage to the bark.   (I also lose buds in the spring to hungry squirrels, but not enough for me to declare war on them – yet.)

The damage pictured on the right is too low down for me to do much about it.  Ideally I’d want to remove it, but it’s a main stem, so I’m keeping it for now.  Hopefully some years hence, there will be enough other grown that I can take it out, especially if it shows signs of disease.  Damage like this is certainly an open invitation for bugs and fungi, but lilacs are amazingly resilient and will put up with an surprising amount of crap.  

Suckers

Gone

Despite being so young, the lilac sends up suckers on a regular basis, as though there might be safety in numbers.  So I clear out the suckers and then move on to the rest of the shrub.  This is sort of an ongoing chore, as it throws up suckers on a regular basis all growing season.

Squirrel damage

Gone

After

Here is some squirrel damage higher up that I was able to get rid of.  Despite the squirrel highway, I like to keep the height down for two reasons.  First, it allows me to prune it without a ladder, and secondly it keeps it down in the sunny zone, where it blooms better.

 So here it is, all done for this year.