3m plus. Also, they send out suckers. Gorgeous flowers, great fragrance but, I would never plant another one.
macandrosie,
Sep 12, 6:51am
Different varieties are different sizes. Some are shrub like while others grow taller. I love them!
summersunnz,
Sep 12, 10:33am
Me too - and lost a gorgeous maroon coloured flowers shrub. a definite to replace.
brightlights60,
Sep 12, 11:04am
Mrs B here. I have grown them for years as trees. I have the old fashioned, double bloomed, dark purple one,and some whites. The trick to grow them into a tree is to remove the suckers as they come up. Each time they do, you can pop those into a pot. These do become less frequent as the years go by. I have 1.2m one in the garden which was in a pot for around 10 years, and 20 2-3 year old ones in pots ready to go into bigger pots. They are slow growing if you are growing them as trees. Too many people just plant them and let them go, and they become unruly and not all that attractive, lovely scent though. They are beautiful as a tree. I will wait till the ones I have in pots are spectacular trees, then sell them off!
piquant,
Sep 12, 11:13am
The main problem is that the rootstock used on lilacs is Privet. That is the thing that suckers - you'll notice that the leaves are darker green, smaller and a different shape than those on the top storey. The other problem is that privet is a stronger growing plant than lilac - hence they generally just fade away in the end. Might take several years - but they generally do. Except the good old Syringa vulgaris. I have it on its own rootstock - and that does sucker but at least you don't have one competing against the other. The clump just gets thicker! It is only a week, maybe 2 away from flowering - I noticed how the buds had filled only yesterday. But all commercially grown plants will be grafted onto Privet. Sorry!
schnauzer11,
Sep 13, 1:27am
We have a massive one on the old property we bought last year. It must be many decades-old, with several trunks. It still bloomed profusely last spring, and look forward to seeing how it does after the pruning it got. Most flowers last year were too high to pick.
mkbooks,
Sep 14, 3:16am
So, the one that was grown for me from a sucker of an old tree, + that I planted here when we moved house, might be better lifted + re-potted? It has good shoots at present, did get some flowers last year-the old-fashioned "lilac" one
piquant,
Sep 14, 4:51am
Why would you think that?
dollydot,
Sep 14, 10:47pm
We have a white lilac several years old now. grows to about 2 metres. Easy to trim and keep tidy, fragrant flowers in spring but they don't flower for long. Suckers are a nuisance. Attractive weeping style shrub though.
brightlights60,
Sep 30, 1:47pm
Yes, my double dark purple one was taken from a "sucker" from the original tree on this property, well over 50 years old. The earthquake killed off our old one, which was absolutely beautiful, and grew as a tree, having had the suckers taken out each year. I have photos of it somewhere, the smell was devine. Other people I know here in Christchurch that had old lilac trees lost them after the quakes too. I also have white ones, am growing dark purple in pots and training the white around them. My grandmother had this, like a standard lilac, huge, in a pot with the purple as the main, and the white around the trunk. Looked amazing.
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