The best time to cut the lilac
First of all: Standard lilacs should, in contrast to bush-shaped specimens, be cut regularly. Otherwise it can happen to you that you cultivate a shrub in no time because of the numerous root saplings. You should remove these again and again throughout the year, as they rob the plant of its strength. The lilac should better invest this in the development of a dense crown and lush flowering. The crown, however, should only be cut back immediately after blooming, because the lilac immediately attaches the flower buds of the following year to the new shoot tips. These are therefore not to be capped if possible.
also read
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- Do you have to cut lilacs after flowering?
- Cut the lilacs of the south correctly
Cut the lilac high stem
The annual maintenance or clearing cut, in which you
- Cut off wild shoots from the root and trunk directly at the base
- Remove intersecting shoots at the stem or branches
- Also cut off curved or inward-growing shoots at the base
- Cut away old and dry shoots
- Remove leafless or leafless shoots, especially inside the crown, directly on the trunk or branch
- and cut off conspicuously thin, powerless shoots without a blunt.
Furthermore, you should cut all new shoots by half in the case of young plants planted in the previous year. In older lilacs, cut the new shoots back to a few eyes, this causes increased shoot growth and thus a compression of the crown. This pruning is not necessary every year, but only when there is a risk of baldness and therefore rejuvenation is overdue.
Keep the lilac high stem small
The shoots of the lilac tend to grow vertically rather than forming a nicely branched crown. You can counteract this tendency with the right cutting technique. To do this, shorten upward-growing branches by at least a third, while outward-growing shoots are cut back less severely.
Tips
If your lilac does not have outward-growing branches, you can help with a trick: tie a stone or something similar to the end of the branch, which will bend the shoot downwards. After a while it will follow this forced growth direction by itself.
