Santimel

You may want to multiply perfectly matched lilacs on their property, adding grace to a fence line or driveway. Perhaps you’d like to create a screen to shade, or a windbreak. Whatever your plans, the same process of propagation can meet your gardening needs.

You’ll have already observed the tendency of your lilac trees to produce new shoots that are nearly independent of the parent plants. You may even have transplanted these in the past, but probably had limited success. The reason for this is that many gardeners treat these newly developed shoots as being fully formed lilacs, transplanting them in fall or spring as they would a plant purchased from the nursery.

Though the new shoots have some of their own roots, the combination of their relatively delicate state and the effects of transplant shock can be too much for the young plants to bear. For a greater rate of success, sever the roots between the shoot and the parent plant early in the spring, by cutting a narrow trench between the two with a shovel. During the growing season, the lilac offspring will develop a strong root base without the stress of being transplanted. Then, you can move the fully formed sapling when dormant in the fall.