Content
- So you can keep lilacs small - instructions and tips
- Suitable measures to keep the lilac small
- Annual pruning - That's how it works
- Tips
If you want to keep lilac small, you often have to reach for the scissors
So you can keep lilacs small - instructions and tips
The common lilac (Syringa vulgaris) has been growing in German gardens since the 16th century and has since enjoyed great popularity: the shrub is considered extremely robust, easy to care for and blooms annually with up to 30 centimeters long, usually purple or white flower spikes. Now the wood can be quite old and very large - who has a rather small garden, the plant must keep small in their growth.
Suitable measures to keep the lilac small
Incidentally, this does not only apply to small gardens, but also to lilacs cultivated in pots. Again, the bushes need to be limited in their growth, which is best achieved through these measures:
The root barrier is eliminated in bucket lilacs, since the roots are kept small here anyway by the size of the planter. Also, do not buy the largest pot for young plants, but adjust its size about every two years according to plant growth. Then it will be time for fresh substrate anyway, so that you can transplant the lilac into a larger vessel. For planted lilacs, root blocking is not only sensible for reasons of growth, because many varieties develop very large, strong and hard-to-remove roots.
Annual pruning - That's how it works
Although a lilac must not be cut in principle, but to keep it small, you should grab the pruner every year. Always cut directly after flowering as the flower buds of the following year are always formed directly after the new shoots. If you cut too late, you may remove the flowers that are coming. And so you keep the lilac small:
Avoid a radical pruning, because otherwise the lilac from the root could drive out - with the result that you suddenly face hundreds of root shoots that sprout around a few meters around the former trunk from the ground.
Tips
Instead of keeping a vigorous lilac small, you can plant a dwarf variety right away. Syringa microphylla and syringa meyeri, for example, are only about 150 centimeters high.