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Lilacs not
only make heads spin with wildly fragrant spring flowers, they’re
also the tried and true At Blake Nursery we're forever singing the praises of lilacs. We brake in our tracks on a regular basis when they're blooming, overwhelmed by their perfume and fabulous array of colors. Of course no longer does one think of lilacs as exclusively lavender. Instead, they offer rich shades of pink, red, deep purple, white, blue and yellow. We can also enjoy their attractive, often colorful foliage when they're no longer in bloom, and even in winter we delight in the beauty of their bark. We can thank our lucky stars we live where we can grow magnificent lilacs with the greatest of ease. Our soils may not be ideal for more acid loving plants, but they suit lilacs just fine, thank you! Our cold winters followed by hot summers aren't a problem either - lilacs handle both with aplomb. And as for powdery mildew, a plague devastating lilacs in more humid climates, well we can forget that one too. So for us in the northern Rockies, lilacs are a no-fuss solution to growing gorgeous and extremely hardy shrubs. Nobody should be without them.
Several lilacs are actually trees instead of shrubs. Japanese Tree Lilac is one of our favorite landscape plants, an elegant late-blooming specimen with enormous white blossoms. Of significance also is that lilacs don't all bloom simultaneously. Some bloom weeks later than others, so if you love lilacs as we do, you can have continuous bloom for over a month by planting several varieties - some blooming just as others fade. At Blake Nursery we have many varieties of hardy, colorful lilacs to die for. Check them out in our catalog pages.
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backbone of many a Montana landscape.
You
find them in close companionship with age-old
homesteads, sometimes surviving on
neglect for decades, where they’ve proven
themselves winter-hardy and drought tolerant. Lilacs
come in many varieties, most of them shrubs while
a few are lovely small trees. Some shrubs are
tall and suckering and create a fortified get-rid-of-the
neighbor hedge. Others are small, delicate
and non-suckering, thus more suited for foundation planting
around your home. Regardless
of their size, their spring blooms are a welcome
sight to butterflies, and birds appreciate dense lilacs
for cover and nesting. Below we’ve listed our favorite Lilacs, all of them regularly
in stock at Blake Nursery. And be warned, when
it comes to Lilacs, one is never enough!
Birds
cotton to lilacs as well for their flowers, seeds, and dense foliage
that provides excellent cover for nests. We are entertained throughout
the growing season with the constant commotion of birds zooming
to and from the lilac hedge our our window - a Grand Central Station
of ornithology.
Another
notable aspect of lilacs is that one size does not have to fit
all. Once maligned for their aggressive habit and often the subject
of chain saw attacks, we now know better. Instead there are charming
and unobtrusive dwarf varieties such as the spicy scented 'Tinkerbelle',
Miss Kim, and Dwarf Korean. Some lilacs sucker at their base so
they form a dense screening plant. Others don't sucker and thus
occupy far less space.
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