A Gardeners Forum Forums Gardening Reference Gardening in 2005 Lilac experiment

Hello everyone,

I read something online somewhere, maybe it was even here, that you can cut a certain piece of a lilac tree, score the bark, and dip it in rooting hormone, and plant it, and it will root. Well I did that, but I don't know if the little twig is rooting or not?!?!? How do I know if that little lilac stick has started rooting?!?!!? I gave it a little tug and it didn't really move. Any suggestions??

Thanks,

ninni

ninni - I tried this myself, without much success. I took off all but a few top leaves, but those dried up and fell off, so I've got a stick in the dirt now I pulled it out, thinking it was dead, but saw some roots! I put it back in the pot, and will just let it sit and see what happens. Is the mamma plant on your property? I think what I'm going to try next is 'wounding' a sucker and burying the wound in the soil, letting the mamma help it along and it will establish it's own root system. At that point I'll cut it completely away from the mamma and replant. Keep us posted on your progress - I will too...I LOVE lilacs, and just have to have them all over the place now that I've had one for a spring of awesome fragrance throughout the yard and even in the house!

Thanks Mary!! I took ALL the leaves off that Twig before I stuck it in dirt, I am just sooooooooooooooooooooooooooo Curious as to if the little thing is Rooting!!!! Like I said I gave it a little pull upward and it isn't moving!! If someone had to make an educated guess, does that sound like a Good SIGN?!??!?


ninni

Definitely a good sign! It sounds like there's roots hanging on for dear life LOL so that's great. I hope it works out for you! And for me too - I LOVE that lilac SO much, I want to line my whole property with it! If I could just figure out how to keep it blooming all year long! LOL!

I tried rooting some lilac cuttings last fall. I took 12" long twigs with a few leaves and dipped them in the rooting hormone, put them in nice new bagged soil in new pots, and kept them moist.

The leaves thrived for awhile, then dried up and fell off. I waited patiently all winter (they were in my sun porch) for some sign of growth. Finally around May I carefully pulled one up. Nothing. Another one which felt like it was not going come up, I gently wiggled it loose and it came up with no roots either.

Then I realized that the tips of those cuttings had dry looking buds on them, while my mother plant's tips had fat buds. I think that's your clue.

jmacd

I'm rooting some cuttings right now as we speak. I've never successfully rooted anything until now! all I did was I got a couple of little jars and put some water in them and then I wet the end of the cutting and then just put it into the water...it's been like 2 weeks and I'm seeing roots already! so you might want to try rooting them in water with rooting hormone like I'm doing and you might get some success that way too...good luck!

Jamie - did you close the lid of the jar or is it sticking up out of the top? Did you pull all the leaves off? How big of a cutting? Are you changing the water? Putting rooting hormone in the water? I really wanna do this!

yeah me too!!

I am sooooo afraid to pull the little twig out, to check! But I could be waiting forever...


Ninni

When I moved to this house last June, I was so sad to see no lilacs. I am with you Mary, I love the smell of the yard and house when they are in bloom. So....a friend of mine cut a bunch of suckers from her bushes....and put them into water. A couple weeks later, I managed to get down there and get the suckers and plant them. They are doing pretty good, well except for the one I got a little too close to the fence and one of the horses likes to chomp on it. She thinks she is a goat. But even broken off it put out buds and is still going. I planted them along the west fence so when they get bigger and bloom and the wind blows, I will have the scent of lilacs everywhere.

Mmmmmmmm! Sounds great Fernie! I'm glad you had luck rooting the suckers. I keep changing my mind between rooting some suckers from the one I have so I can put them in different areas of the yard, or getting other varieties so I can have lilacs going all summer. I'm trying to find out if that's even possible right now.

I would love to have lilacs going all summer!!! Let me know how to accomplish that one. Have you seen the new yellow lilacs (well new to me anyway)? They are simply gorgeous.

nope I don't have a top on them I just let them stick out the top. I plucked a couple of the leaves off at the bottom so there wouldn't be leaves staying in the water. one of the cuttings is I'd say about 4-5 inches long and the other is about 8-12 inches long. I change the water about every 3 or 4 days or so. I didn't put the rooting hormone in the water I just wetted the end of the cutting and then dipped it into the rooting hormone and just put the cutting in the water and left it alone. when I change the water I use room temperature water and rinse the jar out and carefully rinse the old rooting hormone off the cutting and then put new water in the jar (not much maybe so theres about 2 or 3 inches of water in there)and then I just dip the end of the cutting in the rooting hormone and put it back into the water :-) then it's all in the fun of waiting for roots :-)

Cool! That sounds like something I could do I'll have to give it a shot while I'm trying to make up my mind. Can't have too many lilacs!

Fernie - I'm not sure if I saw a yellow one - I've been doing so much research on them that I can't remember what I saw! LOL! I did find something that said that 'summer lilacs' are butterfly bushes. Hmm...I didn't think butterfly bushes were lilacs

This is one of the sites I saw that reference
butterfly bush

Am I reading that right?

I think summer lilac is just another nickname for butterfly bush from the way it looks to me. If they smell half as good, that would still be pretty darn good!

Geesh...I confuse easily enough without their help with nicknaming stuff. LOL! Like you said, if it smells half as good as lilac, I'll 'settle' for that too!