will you stop trying to love your plants to death.. lol ...

it looks EXACTLY like mine .. that have been out in our zone all winter ...

since we dont know where it came from.. i would harden it off to local weather for a week.. .... pulling it in the garage if its going to freeze ... i wouldnt worry about sun hardening.. since the sun is not strong right now ...

and then next weekend.. i would slam it in the ground.. and forget about them ...

there is no reason to wait a month .. imo

ken

ps: if you had mail ordered them from down south ... maybe i would be a bit more protective ... but hey.. its a lilac ...

Don't know about the US Madame Lemoine is the commonest double white over here. A very old and very tough cultivar. As Ken said there's no need to baby them.

We get frosts through May 9th. Waiting til then means you won't have to deal with the aftermath of frosts that are a regular occurrence in my area, in the spring.

Its no big deal to put containerized plants out during the day, and bring them in at night when frosts are forecasted. There's a neighbor of mine down the road that has probably 20 potted shrubs in her front yard as we speak, while she waits out the frost period. I thought everybody did that? It seems to be common practice around here.

I'm off to say something nasty to my cat just to see how he reacts...

So far the leaf shape does not look correct for Syringa vulgaris. Warehouse plant departments here often have mislabeled stock. However it will soon become apparent if these are going to have the heart shaped leaves of that species. What won't soon become apparent is if the flowers are correct for 'Madame Lemoine', specimens this small are going to take probably at least several years to start flowering.

It's barely leafed out Embo. Bark, buds and infant leaves all look OK to me for S vulgaris.

I planted them late yesterday afternoon. It didn't take any time at all, with our yard of topsoil we still have left. And the roots weren't bound up or anything. I didn't have to dig a deep hole, but I made it twice as wide. Oh, and I figure if any frosts are forecasted, I can cover them with any number of buckets we have around here.

Here they are in the ground. So cute! I hope they are indeed Lilacs. DH really likes the looks of them, so if they aren't Lilacs, they are probably staying put, as long as they're zone appropriate.

S. vulgaris leaf shape evident now. I wasn't saying they didn't look like lilacs, only that they didn't have the characteristic leaf shape of S. vulgaris.

If you are planting trees and shrubs in pockets of top soil surrounded by native soil this isn't a good idea. Plant them in the same soil that came out of the hole instead. And give them a wide area cleared of turf, maybe 3 ft. across for instance in the case of shrubs like these. One that is mulched afterward - put added material on top of the planting holes instead of in them.

Very funny! I bought the same plants, in those same exact pots! Mine were from Wal-Mart. They are grown by "Windmill".

That's great!

One of these two lilacs developed blackened leaves ALL over, I'm talking pitch black, even the little buds that had started to open had black leaves starting to emerge. It looked awful. Like it was dying right before my eyes.

I have no idea what was going on with it, because i have a good success rate with these shrubs, but thankfully the other lilac is doing fantastic. The leaves are huge and a luscious green.

I pulled the awful looking $8 lilac, and am replacing it with a declaration lilac, my favorite of all the lilacs.

I bought 3 lilacs at Walmart a couple years ago, and they are doing incredibly well, and growing so fast, too. I wish you success with yours.

Black leaves can mean that they got hit by a frost.

Ilmt, impetuous over reaction again, I'm afraid. If you had just left the lilac alone it would have recovered and grown away happily in due course. Trees and shrubs need time to settle into new quarters and patience is the name of the game.

Madame Lemoine has huge gorgeous fragrant white flowers.Give your plants about a year to bloom well.