My neighbor has a lilac that is as tall as her house. It is not a Miss Kim. I think she said it is English Lilac. She does nothing with her plants except plant them no food no water and still they grow.. Her lilac is located near her foundation on the east side, and is shaded most of the time because of her other big trees. Ahhh I just have a gray thumb verses this lilac. I have a Persian Lilac that is 10 ft tall but it does not have the lovely lilac scent. The alkaline soil might be it. There is a HUGE Oak that drops it's leaves all around the area where the Miss Kim is growing. The tree and it's roots are not near the Miss Kim but in Fall the leaves get on it. Someone told me that Oak Leaves are acid. Oh NO, plus I put pine straw on it for mulch last year. I get it for free from one of my neighbors. Pine Straw is acid too, I think. I will change the mulch and try putting some bone meal on it. Bone meal helps to remove/reduce acid right?? I recently learned how to root plants from clippings and have been successful with Gardenia and Confederate Rose. So I might get a clipping of my neighbors Lilac and try that. I have to have a scented Lilac in my yard. My Mother is deceased, she LOVED lilac. The lilac reminds me of her.

Carol, it was so nice to meet you and I am glad you enjoyed your first swap. We had about 50 people which is good for our first one. But next year we want to get more of the locals to come out and join us. We don't have plant swaps as a rule around here so it was something new, but everyone enjoyed it. We will advertise more next year. The food, there is no words to describe the food, I just took a spoon full of each thing so I got a taste of everything, and desserts, there was no way I could taste everything and I wanted too. Joyce is a doll and you would enjoy the Blue Bird. But if you go you MUST make sure that you go into the toy museum, you don't want to miss it. Of course you must stop at Betty Kaye Bakery. In the fall The Perennial Place has a big sale and it is only a little way out of town, he has nice plants. I was so tired from the night before, I dug until 9:30 as I wanted the plants to be fresh. I took 75 things, some were for my son, he was the one who gave the beautiful bud vases of the girls head and the flower dog. I wanted to have a good selection of plants so everyone got something they wanted. Next year you can always get on here and tell people what you are bringing and what you would like to have. Sometimes there is someone out there who has extra and they are willing to share them. (I wanted to make sure there were plenty of plants for people who wanted extra. In the fall (spring too) they have one in Columbus, it is fun to go there. I took some pictures but they were not very good, I will try to get them posted this week. I am leaving for 9 days in the Outer Banks on Saturday. I must get these plants and in the ground before then. Out mike wasn't working and we have a few things we may change next year but overall I thought it was great. One of the young girl was so happy, she is a new gardener and she said she had the best pile there. I told her everyone thought they had the best pile, each one was unique. One of the children was so excited, he got a yucca and he was so happy he had the biggest plant there. Every plant ended up gone, and everyone helped cleanup, it was such a good day. Thank you and your sister for coming and helping to make it such a success. Twila

You know, I would honestly suggest that you look for some other kind of tree. Miss Kim are still not reliable bloomers here, no matter what any advertising says. I would think after this winter we've had that they aren't going to do well since we have not had consistant chill hours. I worked in Brookhaven for a few years, and there was a home with a line of Miss Kim lilacs. In three years they bloomed once, and it wasn't significant bloom. Not even any scent. Sorry, I don't mean to rain on your parade (I'd love lilacs myself), but I know you've put much work into your garden and so you might want to plant something that will work as hard for you, as you do for it. GGG

Is your neighbor on board with this change, or does the entire width of the shrub need to be on your property? Do you need to get approval to make a change? As others have said, you won't get much spring privacy from Rose of Sharon. When we had one at a former house, it leafed out so late (early June) that most years we were discussing whether it had died over the winter before it actually got around to leafing out. It tends to be quite V shaped, so you won't have good cover for the first 2' or so regardless of time of year IME. IME full sized lilacs are fairly slow growers unless you buy really large shrubs to begin with. Miss Kim is supposed to get to +/-8', so I would think it would make a quite manageable hedge. I haven't run across references to it growing slower than other lilacs and where I've seen it growing it has seemed to fill in as fast as other lilacs. If it were me, I would probably stick with what is there rather than putting in RoS. However, both these shrubs are really of rather limited appeal as far as foliage appeal (neither has nice fall color), fruit for birds, or particularly long bloom period. I would be more likely to look at some of the Viburnum plicatum varieties (late spring flowers and stunning red fall color) or some of the Hydrangea paniculata types as Steppskie suggested (months of bloom starting in late June through late July, depending on the variety and lasting until hard freeze.) Although we have deer, they don't seem to bother the garden plants, so I can't say whether any of these will have issues. Everything I've read, however, suggests that preventing the deer from becoming habituated to your garden by spraying a Deer Off type of solution early in the season and maintaining a variety of aversion tactics (sprays, moving shiny objects, etc.) is really the way to go.