Lilacs

[Courtenay]

I am a Floral Designer (new to the business) in Cincinnati, OH. I have a wedding on June 5, and the bride would like large lilac bushes (in bloom)used in the ceremony. It is past the blooming season here in Cincinnati, and I have checked as far north as Cleveland. Most of the growers there say that they might be in bloom, but they will not guarantee it.

My question is this, where can I buy/order Lilac bushes (either Canada or the US) that will be in bloom for a June 5 wedding. I realize that there may be large shipping costs, but the bride does not mind. So, if anyone knows of anywhere I could call or email to get this product, I would greatly appreciate it if you could let me know.

Thanks in advance for your help,

Courtenay

[dr-solo]

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[paghat]

You could inform her that lilacs are symbolic of premature death -- perfume of a dead child, flowers blue as the small cold hands in which they're placed -- then quote a couple gloomy lines from Whitman's elegy "When Lilacs Last in the Dooryard Bloomed" -- all of which, you might say, gave you the idea of contacting graveyards further north asking who has late-blooming lilacs, but that you're having trouble finding an old-fashioned sexton willing to clip & ship a few from among the cemetery shrubs. Lastly, quote for her Pablo Neruda's answer to the query "Where are all the lilacs?" which runs: "for every dead child a rifle, from every crime bullets which will someday find the bulls-eye of your heart" which could be read at the wedding while holding death-flowers aloft. She'll freak out & ask for roses.

-paghat the ratgirl

[GoldLexus]

I am really new to gardening so bare with me. I bought 2 lilacs from a Garden show. They are the deep purple kind. Currently they are just beginning to bud. I haven't planeted them yet which brings me to my question. How tall do Lilacs get? Once I know how tall they will get than I can figure out where to plant them. Also can anyone recommend a good website on the planting and caring for lilacs? Thanks

[Salty Thumb]

[e-mail] (paghat) wrote in news: [e-mail]:

Man, it's a wonder you don't have better luck scaring the kids! (Ever since you mentioned that, I keep picturing you as Danae from the Non- sequitor comic strip).

[paghat]

It'd depend on the exact species & which cultivar, some of which are small or even dwarf; but an ordinary middle-of-the-road basic Syringa vulgaris potentially grows into a tree. The one immediately next door to me is taller than the two story house it grows beside, with a single lower trunk, suckers having been removed every year since the 1940s -- three years ago the owner gave us one of the well-rooted suckers & it is now growing beside our deck, a lanky nine feet tall &amp just a baby. If not trained to be a tree, lilacs will develop multi-trunks & be shrubs, apt to remain in the range of 15 feet tall, & ten feet wide. So either a small tree or a very big shrub. But many named cultivars stay smaller. The deep purple ones are often the wild form so get biggest.

-paghat the ratgirl