Your gardening questions answered: Can I plant lilac now?

Q: Is this a good time of the year to plant lilac? And if so, could you please recommend some varieties that don’t grow too large? JK, Dublin

One of the enduring joys of the late spring/early summer garden, this exceptionally long-lived, pollution-tolerant, easy-to-grow, hardy ornamental shrub holds a special place in the affections of many gardeners, who prize it for its intensely perfumed, fleeting blossom.

Many of the oldest varieties of common lilac, or Syringa vulgaris to give it its proper Latin name, slowly grow into substantial shrubs that can eventually reach a height and spread of 5-7m, which would be too big for your purposes. Examples include the mauve-flowered Syringa “Charles Joly”, the ghostly-white S, “Madame Lemoine” and the pale blue, strongly scented S, and “Firmament”, all of which are outstanding heritage French varieties bred by three generations of the Lemoine family between 1876-1953.

Russian breeders have also produced many great lilac varieties over the years, including the wonderful S, “Krasavitsa Moskvy” or “Beauty of Moscow” (pale-pink to white double flowers, height and spread of 5-7m). The American-bred S. Katherine Havemeyer’ is another classic variety that’s also loved by florists.

While none of the above are very suitable for small gardens or container growing, the good news is that new breeding programmes have resulted in a host of compact repeat-flowering varieties that are.

The “Flowerfesta” and “Bloomerang” series of modern hybrid varieties of lilac in particular are useful in terms of their compact but bushy growth habit and disease resistance as well as their greatly extended flowering season, which stretches from late spring intermittently into autumn. Recommended varieties