Lilac

Lilac (Syringa) - Where these lovely shrubs are well grown they afford beautiful effects in the home landscape as well as fragrance. To no family has the harm done by grafting been more injurious than to the Lilac, when grafted on Privet for the sake of cheapness and increase. I lost ten years through a grafted collection; instead of growing up, the plants grew down and slowly perished. And so it has been in many gardens where Lilacs have been planted but rarely show their value, though so many superb varieties have been raised of recent years.

To secure the full value of the varieties that we now have, with their long racemes beautiful in color if only well grown, the first thing is to insist that none shall be grafted on the Privet. As to arrangement, the best way is to group our Lilacs in the sun: they are too often put away among mixed shrubs, where they deteriorate, owing to crowding.

Few shrubs are better worth pruning, without which they become a tangled mass of shoots, and we do not get the fine full thyrses of bloom that are seen in French gardens. On fading, the flowers should be removed, and the small and weak shoots also, if the plants are too "stalky," the aim being to secure healthy and open growth during summer. Cutting back in winter is wrong, because the flowers are produced on the wood of the previous year, and cutting back to a stiff ugly outline does not deserve the name of pruning. To prune is to help the natural shape of the bush and let the light into it, so that it can concentrate its energy on a number of strong flowering shoots.

We read sometimes that the Lilac will do in any soil, and so it may in districts where the soil is warm and good, as in much of Ireland, where the Rouen Lilac (commonly called the Persian) makes such lovely trees. Cold places in valleys are not so good for them, especially where heavy soil occurs, because being early the bloom is often caught by late frosts. Therefore, in addition to warm soil, we should try and secure positions not too low down and somewhat sheltered. Coming from a warmer and sunnier land than our own—Transylvania and the regions near—very cold soils and situations are against success.

Lilacs grow freely from seed if sown as soon as ripe. Cuttings are best made from the young wood in early summer, struck in sand on a hotbed, where they root in six to eight weeks. Layering should be done in early autumn, or suckers may be taken in spring and root readily. When once we have the Lilac on its own roots, increase from suckers is easy.

Though some of the old varieties were beautiful—even the common Lilac when well grown—to have a good Lilac-time it is essential to have the newer varieties raised in France, and remarkable for their full range of color. The best are:—