[IBC] Lilac (another collecting ?)
 

does anyone have any advice on collecting lilac? someone i know is would
like to get rid of some lilac in their yard. I havent seen it..when asked
how big? how old? "mmm about 9 or ten feet i guess.. and at least 60 years
old" (its an old farm)

I would have told you to forget lilac as a bonsai, since it is a
clumping shrub, with each individual trunk being short-lived and
subject to disease. However, one of our members, Walter Pall, once
posted about lilacs in Germany, where they were once grown in large
numbers in greenhouses to supply flowers for wedding bouquets. The
flowers were sheared off them every spring for decades, and they were
kept small for easy access. Walter said nowadays in Germany you can
just buy roses from Argentina or whatever, so the whole industry has
died out, but that bonsaists have used those stock trees with great
success as bonsai.

Check out the archives to get his exact words, but if he says they
work, I'll trust him.
--
Nina Shishkoff

Frederick, MD

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