I am wondering if you could just cut the troublesome branches farther down. This form of pruning will encourage growth. The problum you have is that there are no leaves in the intereior. Those brown sticks will not grow more leaves for a while. Pruning farther down could work. I would suggest seeking out someone who knows more then me. If you really do not want to cut it down you could go to a local nursery, garden center, or extension office and ask them. They could tell you how to properly prune it, how hard is needed, and if this is even the best coarse of action. I wish you success. L.G.

Thanks so much for the help! I'm wondering if the problem could be aphids but, would aphids just go away by themselves. They aren't on any of the leaves currently. Anytime I've ever seen aphid infestation it's not something that goes away by itself. The awesome guy that does the lawn does use fertilizer and weed control but I don't think it could get up on the leaves and no other plants near the lawn have this problem. I'm glad to hear it doesn't look like major damage. The lilac is been there probably about 4 or 5 years old. I bought it as a small $25 bush at Lowe's .... Two years ago it almost died. I thought it was just powdery mildew but it could've been a combination aphids also. It's on the east side of the house where it gets full sun until about noon. Thanks again for everyone's help!!

I just "rescued" some plants from a friend's former house last weekend (the new owners let her know that they no longer want to keep her extensive 200+ rose garden, and allowed us to take most of the plants). Go with what cecily said.

You might also consider "Autumn Brilliance" serviceberry. The tree and fruit is beautiful. Some say the berries are better than blueberries, but apparently the birds love them, so you might be hard-pressed to get any for yourself. They have beautiful, white blossoms in the spring and lovely fall color as the name indicates. While they don't require pruning and do stay fairly small (20'), they do tend to sucker a bit around the base, but that takes five minutes a couple of times during the growing season to remedy. There really is no maintenance required other than this. I planted one in my front yard, along with apples, cherries, paw paws, persimmon, medlar, quince and many, many fruiting bushes! Do you feel confident in pruning? Pears shoot for the sky...even "dwarf" and semi- dwarf ones. I assumed, in my youth, that they would stay under the 15' description, but that wasn't the case! Jump to the present: Next to the sidewalk, I planted a hedge of 'Regent' serviceberries, to serve as a leaf barrier, (the neighborhood's leaves all landed on my property because it is the lowest, and during any windstorm they would all blow and settle here.) privacy, color, food for my neighbors and me and the birds and to help with traffic noise and dirt when sitting on the porch. My hope is that they will provide a transition into the permaculture "food forest" I've planted with every manner of fruit tree and bush, herbs and groundcover (strawberries), although I do draw the line with anything thorny or unruly/invasive: no blackberries or raspberries! I have an arbor that I will be putting in the middle of the 120' garden. I've ordered some fragrant pink thornless climbing roses that I'll plant there, and it will offer a friendly 2nd entrance into the front yard. I already have large bluestones as a walkway which the arbor will straddle. I have hazelnuts planted out back, along with elderberries, asparagus, rhubarb, hardy kiwi, grapes, blueberries, apples, pears and cherries, but I'm thinking that hazelnuts might be an option for out front. They are relatively small and can be trained as trees or can grow as large shrubs; either way, they are attractive plants that will produce food that is easy to harvest and process with minimal effort on your part. My revelation with permaculture was that if I'm going to plant something, wouldn't it be wonderful for it to not only look good, but offer up food that I can have all year long, saving me bucket loads of money in the long run?! I hope I've given you some "food for thought!"