Several years ago, I purchased my mom a Lilac Bush...it's her favorite flowering anything....


Problem...
It bloomed twice.... never grew more than 3 ft tall and parts of it keep dying off every year. New sprouts come up every year but then die off before some is gone. It hasn't grown enough to bloom for the past 2 years.


Any ideas?? Or should I just try to find her a new one and write-off the one she has as a lost cause???



Abbie

Dear Abbie, thank you!

I have a shrub that looks very sick at the moment, and it's leaves have all dried up and fallen off. It's Autumn here in Oz land and as I don't know what it is, I don't know if it's deciduous or dead! This is a new house for us that we moved into in January, so we didn't plant it or nor did we see it flower.

If it has died, then a Lilac bush would be perfect to plant in that space. We have lots of Lavendar planted, and I think that Lilac would be another beautiful perfume to add to our garden.

Lilacs are susceptible to Verticillium Wilt which lies dormant in the soil and only attacks certain types of plants. It's a bacteria and you cannot get rid of it. The only way to solve it is to plant VW resistant plant material. It sounds like this is what the problem is with the Lilac. Stunted growth, limbs dying, etc.

My suggestion is to plant something else that is resistant to this bacteria and plant a lilac elsewhere in your yard. This one is toast.

What you might do is cut off a branch and take it to your local county extension office and see if that is truly what it is. If that's not the case, then you can plant another lilac in the same place, but from your description, that's my guess.

One way you can tell if its dead is to take a pair of pruners and cut off a small branch. If it's still green, then its not dead. If it snaps off, then its dead.

Brown and crispy branches are not good!

Thank you FG. I just went and checked. The first bit I cut off is definitely brown and crispy, the second I'm still debating. I'm wondering if the very slight green tinge to the centre of the twig is my imagination or not!

I'll check again in a week or so, but I think it must have gone to the great garden in the sky!

Well, if there is any green in the middle, then it's probably going dormant for the winter. Be brave and find a larger branch and cut it off...it will grow back! Trust me!! I am a pruning expert! That's what I do in the off season....I teach pruning!

The chainsaw is my friend! Our class motto was truck prune junipers!! You chain 'em to your truck and put it in gear and go like hell! That's truck pruning! Junipers are highly volatile and make good fuel for fires! We live in the foothills area where fire spreads very quickly. Junipers are not the ideal perimeter plant material! So, we advocate getting rid of them! Tie 'em to your truck and pull 'em out!

Of course, I don't use my chainsaw to prune everything! I do have the proper tools for the proper plants!! I am only kidding!!!

any help to get rid of the potato vine???? I think that vine is taking over the counrty???? I seen allot of it in virgina but I also have it smoothering my bushes out back. I cut and pull it off but there it is again covering everything.
any help????? should I be diggin the roots out of ground if/when I find the stalks????
T.Y.
I guess I should read this whole thread in case the answer is here already

Potato vine -
Solanum laxum is not known to be invasive. However, it is poisonous. I suggest you spray it with roundup, and keep pulling it up. Make sure the little "potatoes" don't drop anywhere.

That delp started blooming even more 2 days after I planted it!

You had to mention yarrow, huh? Mine needs to be moved. The mint is choking it out.

I was wondering why I had 2 purple tulips - I'd never planted that color. Duh... I'd planted some red ones between the shrubs. The acidic soil turned them purple, lol. That bed is coming along nicely. I'm trying to stay in the red/blue family since everything is going to turn color anyway, may as well all go purple.



And thanks for the info on the lilac. I'd never heard of that one.

I have a couple of questions..We have a huge old Maple tree between our sidewalk and the garage..nothing will grow under it so I've outlined the dirt with paving bricks and am going to fill it with mulch...lots of mulch. Mr.Alffe brought me two bags of shredded cypress to see if I liked it...I'm not crazy about the red color...will it darken in time?

Also, how many inches of mulch should I put down...

And, will it hurt my 125 yr. old tree?

*************

And lastly, when, how, where do I plant the Impatiens capensis seeds.
I live in northern Indiana..only 6 miles from Michigan so I assume this would be an annual here?