IT'S A MIRACLE! After Nixing the Nitrogen, My Lilac Tree is FINALLY Blooming!!!

Four-Year-Old Lilac Blooming for the Very First Time!

In one of my very first blog posts here, I lamented the complete lack of blooms on my lackluster lilac tree.  Four years ago, soon after moving into this house, I ordered two lilacs of the exact same Syringa "Lavendar Lady" variety from Wayside Gardens, a variety that was supposed to be especially well adapted to Southern gardens because it does not require a cold winter in order to bloom.    I gave one of the two lilacs to my mother, who also lives in Charlotte, and Bernie planted the other one in our back yard.

Here is the photo of Syringa "Lavendar Lady" that Wayside Gardens uses on their web site and in their catalog:

Syringa "Lavendar Lady," photo courtesy of Wayside Gardens

Gorgeous, right?  What's not to love?  I can almost smell the lilacs through the computer monitor.  So, we planted the twig with roots that came in the mail, watched it leaf out and grow throughout the summer, and looked forward eagerly to lilacs in the Spring.  But when Spring came, it brought no lilac blooms to my garden, only pale green leaves and longer branches.  Okay, so maybe it doesn't bloom until the second year, once it's more established and mature, right?  Except that my MOTHER'S lilac was already blooming, looking like this:

Mom's Syringa "Lavendar Lady," Spring 2011

It was a far cry from the stunner in the Wayside Gardens photo, but hey -- it had blooms!  Same plant, same source, same climate zone -- what was different?  Well, most obviously, my mother's lilac was getting a lot more sun than ours was, at the back side of the house where it was shaded until afternoon.  I read that lilacs need full sun, and I began begging my husband to relocate the plant so that we, too, could enjoy blooms some day. 

By the way, if you do not live in the Carolinas, where rock-hard orange clay masquerades as "soil," I forgive you for wondering why I didn't dig the plant up and move it myself.  We have actually bent shovels in the orange clay, and I have nowhere near the upper body strength required to dig up a shrubbery here.  Imagine trying to break up a concrete patio with a garden shovel instead of a jack hammer, and you get the idea.  Welcome to gardening in the South!

Just because someone is physically strong enough to dig up a lilac and relocate it in a sunnier spot, does not mean that he necessarily has the will to do so.  Bernie used all his creative cunning to concoct reasons to leave the pitiful lilac where it was.  The first year, he said "If it doesn't bloom next year, I'll move it for you then."  The next year, when it still didn't bloom (and my mother's bloomed again), he came up with a bizarre explanation of how my mother's lilac was actually on the verge of death, and was marshalling the last of its meager energy resources to produce its blooms in a desperate attempt to pass on its genes before shriveling up dead.  My mother, who has been rather smug about her blooming lilac these last few years, was not pleased to hear Bernie's theory.  My lilac was much taller than hers, and covered in leaves, but still no blooms.  Of course, my husband's willingness to dig up the lilac and move it decreased severely as the lilac grew bigger and bigger.

Finally, last year, I read here that fertilizers containing too much nitrogen (like what my Lover dumps all over the lawn, the azaleas, and all over the acid-loving hollies -- can't have too much of a good thing!) can cause lilacs to grow lush green foliage, but no blooms!  Eureka!  Sure enough, Bernie had been plying my lilac with Holly Tone fertilizer in hopes that he could force-feed it into blooming (and avoid digging it up).  He discontinued the fertilizer last summer.

My 4-yr. old Syringa "Lavendar Lady," just like the Wayside Gardens Picture!

I forgot all about our little fertilizer experiment until I looked out the kitchen window the other day and saw two little clusters of flower buds on my lilac.  My specimen is still far from healthy, and Lulu's helpful attempts to prune the lower branches are probably not doing much good, either.  I still believe that the lilac would do better in a sunnier location, but hey -- flowers are appearing where I had given up hope of ever seeing them.  Would I have ordered this tree if I had known ahead of time what it was going to look like in my yard?  Well...

I would still love to dig this up.  It would be so much better if it was at the front corner of the front yard, near the street light and the ugly cable box.  It would have more sun there, Lulu the Terrible wouldn't be snacking on its branches, and then we could enjoy the fragrant blooms every time we walked down the sidewalk.  It would just need to be far enough back from the street that it didn't get peed on by all the neighborhood dogs (canine pee being high in nitrogen).

What do you think my chances are of getting Bernie to dig up this tree, now that it's 10' tall and has sported some meager blooms?  Should I hire a landscaper to move it when he's out of town?  Sometimes, in gardening and in marriage, it is easier to get forgiveness than permission.

BLOOMS!

My saucer magnolia is in bloom! This is the tree I ordered from Wayside Gardens several years ago that was supposed to be an amazingly rare yellow color that never materialized. However, I am grateful that at least Wayside Gardens got the growth habit right -- most saucer magnolias have a much wider, fuller shape than this one. The tall, compact shape of this tree is the only reason I was able to squeeze it in at the corner of my house. It certainly is happy there and has more than doubled in size since I planted it three years ago.

Some of my earliest daffodils are blooming already, too, like this frilly yellow princess.  I planted one of those "mixed daffodils for naturalizing" assortments from Colorblends a couple years ago.  I was way too busy last fall and I didn't get any tulips in the ground (tulips are pretty much treated as annuals here, because even those that are rated to do well in Zone 7 end up rotting from our ridiculous clay soil).  I'll be especially appreciative of my daffodils this year, since I'm going to be suffering from serious Tulip Envy in a few weeks!

I really shouldn't have planted the daffodils in this location, at the edge of a wooded area on one side and shaded by my house on the other.  They would be multiplying and blooming a lot better had I planted them someplace where they would get more sun.  Note to self: Instead of planting hundreds of  "annual" tulips in the front flower beds, I should plant daffodils there this fall.  They should do really well there, I won't have to replant every single year, and the yellow color will set off nicely against the dark purple-pink of the saucer magnolia on the corner.  I should just do the tulips in the pots on the front steps, where the cannas grow in the summer, or maybe in the Flower Dump.

One more happy Spring surprise before I get back to work this morning: although I haven't planted pansies or anything else yet this year, a few seeds from last year's pansies planted themselves and have popped up unexpectedly:

Ignore the weeds and the moldy old leaves.  I love little garden surprises like this -- it's a reminder that even in our carefully contrived, planned, and manipulated yards and gardens, nature and chance still determine which plants bloom and thrive in response to, or despite, our best efforts to control them.

It's also a reminder to keep our eyes open and notice the details -- one little pansy by its lonesome is easy to overlook at the corner of a neglected flower bed.

Today is another busy day crammed into a busy week.  I hope you enjoyed this little taste of Spring, especially if you're still dealing with ice and snow. 

Spring Gardening Update

...So, I finally called Wayside Gardens to complain about my "Yellow Bird" Magnolia having pink flowers.  You will recall that I planted the little twigling two years ago and have patiently tended it and waited for it to bloom, and this is the first year that any flowers appeared at all.  Wayside Gardens initially informed me that their plant guarantee required me to notify them within one year "if a plant fails to perform as expected."  How was I supposed to know to complain about the flowers being the wrong color before any flowers had been produced?  Eventually I obtained the concession of a $25 gift certificate, but the whole exchange was so unpleasant that I doubt I'll ever purchase from them again anyway.  They insisted that I didn't buy my lilac from them, but some internet research turned up some interesting possibilities for that plant's failure to bloom.  My darling husband confesses to having fed Holly Tone to my lilac, and several sources indicate that lilacs prefer slightly alkaline (not acidic) soil and that feeding them with a high nitrogen fertilizer will encourage foliage but inhibit blooms -- so no more Holly Tone, and better hopes for lilac blooms next year.

At least my clematis is looking good.  I planted it last year on a whim, from seeds, I think, and it was kind of like Jack and the Beanstalk watching this vine grow up and entwine itself on the trellis.  I'm pretty sure the seed packet said my clematis would have "dark red" blooms, and these look dark purple to me, but seeds are cheap and I'm just happy they are growing at all.

Other happy flowers in the spring garden are the irises that my husband rescued from a building site last year under cover of darkness.  It was one of those tiny old homes sitting on a big piece of land with gardens all around it, and a developer bought the house, razed it to the ground, and bulldozed the entire lot for future townhomes.  This happened right before the housing bubble burst, so once they had flattened everything the property just sat there for months -- and a couple of optimistic irises, in defiance of  bulldozers and townhomes and the economy and everything, had the courage to poke their shoots of green up out of the dirt last spring, trying to be a little bit of beautiful at an ugly abandoned construction site.  Now they live in my flower bed, where they are blooming alongside my son's favorite African Marigolds.

Those will be red lilies coming up behind the irises eventually, along with a motley assortment of camellias and other perennials that begged to come home with me even though I didn't really have a good place to put them.  I honestly don't know what all I've planted here.  This is the Flower Dump.

Now, before you start thinking too highly of my third-grade son's gardening instincts, I have to confess that he only likes the marigolds because they are orange.  He likes EVERYTHING to be orange; orange clothes, orange ink pens and highlighters, orange bookbags...  And he has a love-hate relationship with plants in general, as evidenced by what he did to this poor Autumn Joy Sedum plant a few days ago.  Apparently the plant went over to the Dark Side or something, because my son hacked it nearly to death with a light saber.  It's a good thing this plant is resilient!  My husband was so mad when he saw the plant, and my son looked so sincerely surprised that this was a problem...  Fun times!

Meanwhile, I'm finally getting the custom flower boxes that I've been begging for.  My husband is making them for my birthday present out of some kind of stuff that doesn't rot that we painted to match the window trim, with drainage holes at the bottom covered with some kind of fiberglass mesh screening so the soil doesn't fall out, and he has elaborate schemes for running little tubes up the house along the mortar lines so the flower boxes can get irrigation from the sprinkler system.  I don't like seeing the L-brackets underneath the boxes, and the decorative brackets I ordered are backordered for a couple of weeks, but they look pretty good so far:

Now I just need to decide what to plant in them.  I envision something red and trailing that will bloom all the way through the summer without anyone needed to climb a ladder or open a window to deadhead the spent blooms.  I went to two nurseries today and didn't see anything I liked, but I'm determined to get flowers planted up there tomorrow.

Garden of Deceit

You cannot be cynical if you are a gardener, especially if you are an aspiring plant snob like me and you lust after exotic and unusual flora from mail order catalogs. Gardening requires optimism, courage, and faith, as anyone who has ever received a bare-root plant by mail can attest. When you rip open the package and see the dead-looking twigs you spent $50.00 on, you need to dig down deep inside your soul and believe that, with proper love and attention, this twig will transform into the centerpiece of your garden, making you the envy of your neighborhood, and securing your reputation as a Goddess of Gardening forevermore. You also need to believe you will live long enough to see this happen.


I wasn't content to plant the same old pink saucer magnolias that all of my neighbors' yards were sporting, so I ordered a couple of Unusual Varieties from Wayside Gardens two years ago when I bought this house (and inherited the barren, neglected yard that came with it). Magnolia "Yellow Bird" was touted for its vivid yellow blooms that were supposed to appear later than the pink-flowered varieties, after the danger of late frost damage had passed. Yellow Bird was supposed to be a tall, narrow, compact variety, making it well suited for its intended location at the front corner of my house so that anyone driving down the street to our home would be welcomed with masses of yellow blooms each spring, and all of my neighbors would be able to see the tree and remark to one another about its beauty, it's novelty, and it's exquisite loveliness... Did I mention that the blooms are supposed to be yellow? In the immortal words of Charlie Brown, "Aaaaarrrgh!!!!!" I waited for two and a half years for this tree to get established and finally bloom, and now I finally have a flower, and it's PINK. Pink like Barbie, pink like Hello Kitty, and pink like every other saucer magnolia in the neighborhood. I hate pink. I've been had!



There is another Plant of Mystery in my garden, also from Wayside Gardens, and this one is even more maddening. I have longed for lilacs ever since moving to the South, but most varieties require colder winters than what we get here in Zone 7. So, about the same time that I ordered the Imposter Magnolia, I also ordered a lilac variety that was supposed to be well suited for my climate. Imagine -- lilacs in Charlotte, North Carolina! No one has lilacs in Charlotte, at least not any that I have seen in the eleven years that I've lived here. I ordered two plants, and gave one to my mother to plant at her house, just a few miles away from my own. Well, two years have gone by and although my mother's lilac has produced blooms each year, mine gives me nothing but leaves. My husband tries to placate me, pointing out that my plant appears healthier and much more robust than my mother's, and mine is certainly much larger now. He tells me that my mother's lilac is blooming out of despair because it thinks it is going to die and wants to try to reproduce to save the species (my husband has an active imagination). But I didn't order a lilac so that I could look at lilac leaves; I wanted to see and smell lilac flowers, for goodness' sake! How is anyone supposed to even know that it's a lilac if it doesn't bloom? It's not as though your average Charlottean can recognize a lilac from its foliage. That's my lilac in the photo, just a collection of healthy twigs sprouting boring green leaves. Grrr...

And yet, spring is in the air and getting under my skin as well. My daffodils are poking up and starting to bloom, and I've noticed some flower buds on the azaleas. The clematis that looked so dead through the winter has reawakened and looks as though it will bloom within the next week or two. I have pruned and sculpted my crape myrtles and find myself musing over which annuals to plant in the front beds this year. Will this be the year I finally get the window boxes I've always wanted? The magnolia and the lilac are disappointments, but I haven't given up on them yet. We'll see what they have to say at Wayside Garden's customer service department. Maybe next year I'll get those exotic spring flowers that I've been waiting for!