GARDENING - Lilacs

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Lilac time all year round (Filed: 23/06/2001)

It smells lovely, but syringa has its faults. Fred Whitsey recommends little lilacs instead

MUCH as we love them, and should not like a spring to pass without getting a whiff of their perfume, lilacs do have weaknesses as garden plants. For one thing, at this time of year they hang on to their spent flowerheads - sometimes for months - which not only disfigures them but also forces you to climb perilously on steps to snip them off if you want to be sure of flowers next year.

They also lack grace as flowerless bushes. Once the flowers are finished, all these lumpy great things are good for is perimeter shrubs, shielding the garden from the common gaze and acting as a baffle against noises off. This they can do quite efficiently, as they respond to pruning by growing ever more bulky.

A cautionary word, then. Don't be led astray by those winning little upright bushes in garden centres unless you have spacious sites that can accommodate them in a few years' time. I have often been an accessory to the slaying of a fine lilac tree that has outgrown its space.

Though I have never had a hand in assassinating one of what, for convenience, might be called the little lilacs. They do exist, though if you saw them without flowers you might not take them for lilac bushes at all. "What is that neat growing little shrub with those pretty round leaves," you might ask, on seeing Syringa microphylla 'Superba' for the first time. (All lilacs belong to the syringa genus, though, confusingly, 'syringa' is also used for the philadelphus or mock-orange bush).

Though the scent is as sweet, you might not recognise the little lilac from the flowers. Individually they are smaller than our familiar lilacs and less densely packed. Elegant, rather than exuberant.

What we know best as lilacs came originally from Eastern Europe in the 17th century and were developed in France during the 19th, where the race of seedlings were named 'Hyacinthiflora'. But Syringa microphylla came only in the last century from the vastness of northern China and is made of sterner stuff. While it will grow in some shade, it does best in a sunny spot which ensures plenty of flowers in late May and early June.

Actually, it is a plant that seems uncertain about its true season. The 'Superba' variety, the selected form in which it is always grown, will bloom intermittently through the summer and often give quite a strong autumnal flourish, provided you snip off the dead heads soon after they are spent.

It thrives in a biggish pot on a patio where it can also be used as a climbing frame for long-flowering trailing plants sold for hanging baskets. For instance, two or three small plants of the exquisite pale blue Convolvulus sabatius, tucked in round the lilac, will weave slender stems up through the bush and give weeks of flower in summer and into autumn.

If you don't want your lilac to continue flowering past its season, try another little lilac, Syringa meyeri 'Palibin'. Confusingly, you may find this listed as S. palibiniana or S. belutina and sold among rock plants rather than shrubs.

It actually grows up to four or five feet. Again, it originates from the winter-ravaged regions of China and can tolerate the spells of summer dryness. The flowers of 'Palibin' are a deeper colour than those of the microphylla, a purplish shade that in some light verges on violet.

I can visualise both these brave little shrubs being grown in those self-maintaining colonies with four seasons of flower. First you could plant five lilacs. Between them plant one of the common Geranium sanguineum, perhaps the flesh-pink 'Lancastriense', which grows flat on the ground and is virtually evergreen, to follow the lilacs in flower.

Then add two or three plants of the blue and white 'Buxton's Blue' geranium for late summer and autumn. This would loosely trail about and conveniently die back in winter. For late winter plant between it all forms of the lavender-coloured Crocus tommasinianus, which would seed everywhere, doing no other plant any harm but giving you delight in the darkest days and acting as a prelude for the succession to come.

-- Anonymous, June 26, 2001


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