Miss Kim Korean Lilac -- blooms a week or two later than regular lilacs, EXTREMELY fragrant. Mine makes my entire back yard smell wonderful when it's in bloom, a very sweet honey-like fragrance, a little different from S. vulgaris scent but extremely nice.

You can get them trained as a tree form or standard. Size is small, though, usually no more than 6 to 8 feet, since its a dwarf lilac anyway. Which I think would actually be perfect based on your photos.

Ivory Silk Tree Lilac is nice, but I don't recall mine being particular strongly scented.

Really, you could probably train any lilac to be a standard if you wanted to, it would just require patience and ongoing removal of suckers.

Thanks for this, keep them coming

I'm confused as to whether you are looking for a shrub or a tree. Only a limited number of vars are available for the Syringa reticulata so choosing is based on what is available.

Dan

I am interested in a TREE

I don't want to nitpick, but you want a shrub trained to a tree shape. Lilacs are multistemmed shrubs and be trained to a "standard": a single stem, which as it ages looks like a trunk. But I don't believe I've ever heard of a "lilac tree" one whose unpruned from is a single trunk and branches high up the trunk.

I think your terminology might be a source of confusion, too, if you went to a nursery looking for a "lilac tree."

Am I correct about this, fellow gardeners?

The message I get from the OP is they want a Syringa reticulata according to the text typed above.

The 'most fragrant' is easily chosen by going to the nursery and choosing between the 1-2-3 vars offered, or calling the mail order nursery and asking them.

Dan

I have what I "think" is a hungarian lilac. I planted it over 32 yrs ago in a cubicle brick planter at my front door. It blooms EVERY single year and is heavenly. I think one reason it is so prolific is that iit is obviously very rootbound. My other lilacs bloom about every 10 yrs or so. they usually freeze in the importat stage whereas this one blooms later an does fine.

The most scented lilac is Korean Lilac. My friend has 9 of them planted in 1 straight line. I went to his house around 8pm. Right after I got out of my car, I thought I was put under a spell. What she does too is open her garage door and her door going to the house. She also opens her door to her backyard so that the wind has an exit. It makes her whole house smell really good!

However, she told me that she only smells it during mornings and at night! But still, all I can say, it's unbelievable.

In my own garden, there was also this very intoxicating scent that took me a week to figure out. Even when I am in the driveway when a breeze hits me, I can smell it so strong. I smelled my alchemilla, forthegilla, alyssum and also to my neighbor's plants. It wasn't them. I found out it was my Dianthus Firewitch. I couldn't believe it was it because I didn't smell it during its first and second year.

Another plant I know is sweet pea. It smell's like lilac. However, I am not sure if it's strong. I didn't have a chance to investigate it since I only stayed at Cantigny for few hours.