We recommend that you plant our lilac bushes immediately on 
arrival, in a well-prepared, well-limed, well-drained, fertile soil, at least 
six feet apart, in full sun. Lilacs will not thrive in heavy shade or 
under large trees. Set the roots well spread out in a hole amply large 
enough to accommodate them. The bushes should be planted an inch 
or so deeper than they were in the nursery. The mark left by the 
earth on the stems will tell you at what depth they originally grew. 
If you cannot plant them as soon as they arrive, “heel” the roots 
temporarily in earth which is kept moist. 
Water the plants thoroughly at planting and continue to supply 
water at weekly intervals until frost, unless there is ample rain. Mulch 
them with strawy material immediately after planting and keep the 
mulch on continuously thereafter. Do not forget their need of water 
in hot dry summer weather, particularly when they are small or have 
been recently transplanted. 
Each year, immediately after blooming, remove the dead blossoms 
from your lilac bushes, since otherwise seed pods will set, putting an 
unnecessary drain on the plant. Lilacs bloom on the previous year’s 
wood, therefore, unless it is a dead branch that you wish to remove, 
do not prune at any time other than immediately after flowering. 
The pruning of a lilac is a comparatively simple undertaking. 
Different varieties differ in height, but a lilac bush that is allowed 
to grow higher than 9 feet is likely to become scraggly and unmanage- 
able, with the flower thyrses tending to appear only on top, far out 
of reach for cutting and ever fewer in number, since it means that the 
plant is being encouraged to make wood at the expense of bloom. There- 
fore top your bushes at intervals of a year or two, where you see they 
are reaching for height, and you will find that they assume a naturally 
graceful shape. 
In pruning, cut out weak, injured or dead wood at the point of 
juncture. Treat similarly branches that rub each other, removing one 
of them, and work always to prevent the formation of a bush so thick 
that of necessity much of the wood will be of only second quality. Get 
sunlight and air into the centre of your shrub. When you cut a twig 
or branch at a point other than that of juncture, as when you are 
topping a branch, prune just above an outward facing bud. Paint cuts 
larger than one-half inch in diameter with tree paint, to prevent entry 
of wood-destroying fungi. 
As our bushes are all on their own roots, suckers that appear will 
bear flowers true to the variety. Since over many years the wood 
in a bush tends to grow old and lose its power to produce prime bloom, 
or even dies, it may be necessary to take out main stems at the ground. 
Hence it is good practice to encourage a few suckers which in time 
will replace major parts of the plant that have been removed. However, 
too many suckers sap the strength of a bush, and all but three or four 
should be removed just below ground level each year. 
A word about own-rooted lilacs. We firmly believe that they are 
most satisfactory, although the subject is admittedly a controversial 
one. We believe the only reason grafted stock is more generally offered 
lies in the fact that a large plant can be produced in a comparatively 
short time by this method. An own-rooted lilac propagated from a 
cutting may only be nine inches in height after the first season’s growth. 
It’s a time-consuming, tedious and costly business to grow lilacs that 
way. But it produces bushes with thick skeins of fibrous roots—bushes 
that soon overtake in size any grafted stock. As for the future prospects 
of health and thriftiness, of long survival and increasing floriferousness 
of own-rooted lilacs, we think there can be no question. 
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