Lilac hedge
jaffacakes
Posts: 434
Hi all, i have a mature lilac hedge. Not sure how old it is as only bought the house just over a year ago. It only had a few blooms last year. I thought maybe it had been pruned by previous owner and that was why but it has started blooming again and is only producing only a few blooms again near the top of the hedge.
I didn't want to prune last year but i think i will give up on blooms as they are pretty fleeting anyway. I was thinking of pruning it back with hedge trimmers this summer as it is quite large. It stands at about 10 foot and i would like to lower it to about 7.
It is ok to use hedge trimmers on a lilac or will it look terrible? Maybe it's best to do it over winter when the hedge is bare...
Sorry for all the questions. i'm not very familiar with Lilac but the few flowers i see are nice 
Posts
Lilac will naturally bloom at the ends of the stems, so your 'hedge' will never be one thing or another. It's a small tree, really. Pruning it after flowering is right, but don't expect flowers all over, they'll always be at the top, on growth produced the previous year.
H-C
Yep I echo HC's sentiments, prune straight after flowering if at all.
Take out a third of the tallest branches right to the ground, and let the younger shorter growth get to the height you want. As the others said, it's not a hedge plant.
You can also cut it all right down to the ground, and it will send up lots of new shoots everywhere, if you want to start from fresh. It will be about four or five years before you get flowers again, but then you'll have more control over the height.
Thanks all. Sounds more challenging than I initially thought. Deffo don't want to cut it right down as it acts as privacy. I have none on one side and too much on the other ha. I will give it a small trim after flowering to reduce height a little. It could be at mature height already.
That's what I do with mine jaffa, I have it amongst the canopy & in the middle of one of the privet hedges. It's worth it for it's blooms but seems to get quite sparse leaf wise towards the end of Summer.
Last edited: 28 April 2017 20:42:14
Thanks Mark. It is actually mixed with privet for me too and a lovely mature variegated holly bush, loads of ivy but unfortunately annoying brambles too. It's very hard to keep the privet looking formal with this mix
Never heard of a "lilac hedge" before! Are they all the same variety? How long is that "hedge"? What density (how close are the lilacs to each other ? ) Can you post a photo?
Last edited: 28 April 2017 22:07:33