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Ivory Silk Tree Lilac spent bloom mess

7 years ago

Our local nursery is currently selling bareroot Ivory Silk tree lilacs and I would like to plant about 3 as a privacy screen on my side yard. My question is do the spent flower blossoms make a lot of mess? I'm concerned they'll annoy our nice neighbors.

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Comments (5)

waynedanielson
7 years ago
not really. lilacs aren't noted for large petals. if there is a problem, a quick blow with a leaf blower will have any such drop in the next county.

that being said, someone will have a problem with anything.
Embothrium
7 years ago
This species of lilac smells like privet in flower. And grows larger than common lilacs do.
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Just be aware that if you want lilacs for scent, the Jap. TL has none, although it is usually very floriferous. Look up the various species of Syringa, and the various hybrids and see which ones have characteristics you want, and then start looking for plants. If it's unusual, you may need to get it by mail-order (on-line-order?). It may be that your local nurseries won't have them now; I've noticed that many plants are in stock just before or as they flower, and then aren't around for the rest of the year. I guess it makes sense as many people tend to buy somewhat on impulse, and most nurseries have only so much display space. Since you can plant potted plants almost any time of the year, if you are willing to water them well, and baby them through the summer, you could take your list of desired lilacs to a good local nursery and ask if they can find them for you now. It might cost you a little more, but supplying plants IS their business, after all. If you want to wait, you could ask for the nursery to find them in the fall. Or, you could use the summer to find on-line sources, and order the trees you want for fall planting. Just be aware that many mail-order plants are smaller than you can get at a nursery, due to shipping costs and cares in packing.
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If this is a vegetatively propagated clone of the cultivar it should be sexually mature at the time of purchase, it having the sexual maturity of the stock plant. This occurrence is how it is possible to purchase specimens of large-growing magnolias in flower at garden center sizes, that if raised from seed might take 10 to 30 years to reach sexual maturity. If your lilac does not flower within a few years you should begin to wonder. Does it look like a grafted specimen, trained into a tree shape, and with the right bark, buds and leaves for this species? Or is it possible you have been sold a seedling of the cultivar, with the cultivar name wrongly applied? Or even a different species of tree?
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This is my fault as I should have the read my response before I posted it. But the libray was closing and I was running out of time. Whenever, I plant anything. I put a mixture of topsoil, compost and the original soil that I dug out. That way I don't get the bathrub effect which would kill most of my garden, the other trees I planted which bloom just fine and my all roses. Other thing, is I also use earthright once or twice a year. I haven't yet this year but I have to this month or I have to wait until fall. Like I said I did talk to Johnson county garden extension office that told me that it might be growing issue. As the tree has really taken off in the last two year. The other times it didn't bloom were to late freeze but this year that shouldn't been an issue. In early May the lowest we got was 38 which did affect some of the leaves but not enough to keep it from blooming. There are some blooming in a near by city. Ants are not an issue because they prefer my Pin oak.
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Flowers are born on last year's wood, so if one must be pruned, do it immediately after it has ceased blooming. I have Summer Snow and mine has only been planted two years now, and has yet to bloom, so I'm not a good resource to give you any information you couldn't get by a web search. I do know that they do like sun in your zone and that they prefer sweet soil and should likely have no supplemental nitrogen unless you are sure your soil is deficient.
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femc
Original Author
7 years ago
How strong a fragrance are we talking about ? These trees would be located at least 50 feet from anything but I'm planning on planting about 4 as it is. How long do they bloom for? I read some negative comments on their perfume but they range from " you have to get up close" to "will fill your garden with"

I have never smelled privet.
waynedanielson
7 years ago
someone will complain about anything. I used to have classes in a building that had a number of these planted around the hall. Of all the plants that no one has ever complained about the smell of, this is one. And this includes the days of working in nurseries where we had blocks of these by the acre...even in bloom, I cannot recall a single sly comment about the smell, other than they were in bloom and had a slight smell.
NHBabs z4b-5a NH
7 years ago
The appeal of different scents can be quite personal, so if you are fussy about scents or there is the potential that this might bother you, see if you can find one in bloom to judge. I personally don't find the scent of these appealing, but that doesn't mean that you wouldn't like it.

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