Lilac question

[MaryJoL]

My sister lives in Georgia and has tried, unsucessfully, to grow lilac bushes. Does anyone know if there is a type of Lilac that will grow sucessfully in georgia? Thanks for any info....

[cayjen]

did a google search and found a lilac named "Kim" that grows in the south.

[cayjen]

zones 3 to 8

[Vox Humana]

I would recommend that your sister visit some reputable garden centers in her area - NOT places like Wal-Mart. They would know what grows well in the area and can sell her an appropriate plant. They will also be able to give advice on selecting a planting site, and in most cases can plant the shrub for her. Georgia covers a couple of zones and there are mountain and costal areas. In a particular location, there are issues such as how much sun the plant gets, soil conditions, etc. It might help to elaborate on what "unsuccessful" means. I have been successful in growing a hydrangeas in one area of my property and successful in another. I have two lilacs that are doing quite well and next-door, my neighbor's lilac died over the winter.

[paghat]

Georgia is divided up into a lot of zones from 6B to 9. You'd have to live in zone 6B or 7A for lilacs to be ideal garden choices, as Syringa vulgaris isn't very likely to make it in other parts of Georgia. As a generality lilacs are ideal for zones 4-7 and for Northwest zone 8, but south & southwest regions that are Zone 8 are so dissimilar from northwestern zone 8 that it's rather absurd that places in Texas & much of Georgia also average out to zone 8 despite summers so hot & winters so mild that there's no chance that lilacs could bloom reliably even if they lived.

Lilacs are notoriously difficult in the south. If you happen to live in a part of the south that is Zone 8 this doesn't take into consideration their dislike of high humidity, their intolerance of sustained high summer temperatures, their preference for cool but long summer nights experienced further north in order to set buds, & their need for a reasonably cold winter dormancy.

The exceptions are not Syringa vulgaris, the largest most redolent & most often planted lilac available in so many cultivars, but also the least likely to succeed in the south. There are other species much more likely to adjust to a hot-summered southern Zone 8. Three varieties most associated with success in Georgia: the heat-hardy & rather small Syringa patula 'Miss Kim,' and more especially Syringa oblata var. dilitata, and Syringa x laciniata, cultivars of the two even having wholesale growers in Georgia & North Carolina, so they ought to be distributed in your local nurseries. But if you're in a Zone 9 part of Georgia, even these will likely fail, or live but never bloom.

If you shop for lilacs at one of the big chain stores they alas are all to frequently shipped plants totally unsuited to the zones those plants are sold in, mass-produced plants contracted from a very limited number of growers rather than selected from region-appropriate growers. So check out the best independent nurseries for Syringa oblata var. dilitata and Syringa x laciniata cultivars.

Budleia butterfly bush would be more certainly suited to Georgia gardens, with flowers just as redolent as lilac.

-paghat the ratgirl