Oh, Canada! Your lilacs are moose-free!

July 1, 2007

Dirt Divas / Brooke Heppinstall, Sally Koppenberg and Holly Truelove

One of the perks of gardening in Alaska is the large sculptures, which move from bush to bush, like performance artists bent on getting a reaction from their audience. Our visiting friends and relatives “Ooh!” and “Ah!” and reach for their cameras, while we reach for the sling shot or paint ball gun and curse. Bambi is a wimp compared to Momma Moose and Calfie as they continue munching on your favorite flowering shrubs and trees undaunted by threats and flailing of arms. A sniff at the dog and they just mosey on to the neighbor's horticultural food stand, leaving broken branches and glowing tourists behind. It could be worse. We could have locusts.

It's amazing how moose tend to have favored treats while they disdain others within the same species. It pays to know what they don't like to eat if you don't want to have to wrap your flowering shrubs and trees so the garden looks like your designer was Christo. Of course, that doesn't leave us a lot of variety as they eat damn near anything. Except the mid to late flowering Lilacs!

Oh, Canada! Your lilacs are moose-free! These hardy zone 2 to 3 shrubs are so easy to grow you can pretend they're natives and practically ignore them. I have two Donald Wyman's that are in full bloom and pretending they are part of the natural woods. They never get fed, pruned, or watered on purpose and they are full of blooms and fragrance. The moose never notice them but make a bee line for the common old-fashioned purple lilac that's still only 3 feet tall and has yet to bloom in 4 year's time.

Canadian lilacs, or Preston hybrids, were first introduced by plant breeder Isabella Preston, at the Central Experimental Farm, Ottawa, Canada in 1920. The result of a cross between Syringa komarowii ssp. reflexa and S. villosa, these hardy lilacs extend the lilac bloom period by several weeks. Dr. Frank Skinner, another Canadian breeder, noted for many lovely moose-proof cold hardy roses, developed the lush deep lavender pink and purple “Donald Wyman.” Dirk Maarse, of the Netherlands, developed the pink “James MacFarlane” and “Miss Canada,”the creamy yellow “Primrose,” and the bicolor purple with white “Sensation.”

Canadian lilacs make lovely bushy shrubs eight to 12 feet in height and five to eight feet in width. They can be pruned back to three to five trunks for a low spreading tree after removing the lower branches. Canadians bloom when young unlike the common or the fussier French lilacs and rarely need fertilizer or anything beyond normal gardening attention. Lilacs prefer neutral garden soils with a pH of 6.5 to 8.5, well-drained soil, and lots of sun. If you're inclined to fuss over them, a bit of lime around the drip line once a year ought to do it, but, go easy on the fertilizers and keep the lawn fertilizer away from the drip line as too much nitrogen will kill your bloom to leaf ratio. Give them plenty of water in June and July so they'll set their flower buds for next season. Prune them right after they finish flowering, cutting out any branches that are over one inch in diameter for better blooms. Deadheading the spent blooms isn't necessary unless it's a very young shrub or you're channeling Martha Stewart and have too much time on your hands.

Syringa villosa hybrids are another very moose-proof and virtually indestructible lilac that can reach heights of 15 to 18 feet and up to 20 feet in width. A native of Mongolia, the locals called it Ting hiang which translates to the apt

“fragrance of cloves.” On a hot sunny day the perfume wafts around the house and caresses your senses. Mmm.

This light lavender-pink lilac will bloom very young and is so hardy you can't kill it. I have a “volunteer” shrub blooming in a low, boggy swale where the soil is more acid and the alders surround it as one of their own.

Lilacs are most fragrant on a warm, sunny day, so placement is important. The colors can vary depending on your soil chemistry, so yours may not look like the one in the photos. Unlike fragrance, the colors are most intense on cool, damp days. With our fickle weather conditions we'll have plenty of time to enjoy both the sweet spicy perfume and the color variations as these lilacs thumb their noses at the moose mafia rummaging through the garden larder.

Oh, Canada, we stand on guard for thee!

Brooke Heppinstall is the owner of WoolWood Studio & Gardens on Lazy Mountain in Palmer.  Contact her at WoolWood@chugach.net or 746-3606.