I'd cut it all down to 18 inches some winter so that everything above that point was new wood. There will be a lag time before it starts flowering again after that.

google : rejuvenation pruning of flowering shrubs ...

count the number of monster trunks.. remove one third.. as close to the ground as you can.. say 3 to 6 inches ..

the suckers are already there.. about 3 foot tall twigs.. once exposed to the sun.. they will explode with growth.. with no insult to the root mass ...

if you dont mind looking at that shed for the season .. take all the monsters down ...

you cant kill this thing if you wanted... so there is no reason to live with it.. as it is ...

most of us would do it just after flowering.. why not enjoy the show .... timing is NOT important ...

ken

Thanks!

My half way re-done old shed? Yea...maybe if I looked at it more it would get finished!

There's a monster mock orange behind it and a monster boxwood behind that. Maybe I'll just take a few years and they can each get a major haircut while the others are still up/coming back to hide my house from the road.

There is also one random grapevine-that bears fruit!- and one random yellow tulip under there. It's like a treasure hunt around here sometimes!

Do you want to have things that look like trees or just kind of a hedge?

Hmmm, purple, good question! I hadn't thought about it, but we like the height in general. It helps to hide us from the road and the road from us.

Our maintenance plan for the above tree (at a house where my Mom lived for 10 years) was to trim the suckers at the base after flowering each spring. Then whatever branches that might have grown unattractively, or banging into the house. The more you trim, the more it will be inspired to grow. The pic was taken about 2-3 weeks before annual sucker trimming time, so you can see that with minimal trimming, there's minimal suckering. A lilac does not need regular pruning to bloom well, only for size when the desire is for a shorter entity. In this case, a hedge or shrub would have blocked a lot of the view and light from of that window.

Lilac makes a FINE tree. I think yours is absolutely stunning!

Thanks, purple! we are fond of it even if we can't take credit for planting it!

My husband *inadvertently* trimmed our beautiful shrub into a square. I was livid, but it was too late. Needless to say, it took a few years to recover, but bounced back and by the third year was an attractive shrub again.

I admire the mature tree form. I'd keep it.

Thanks, domino! We aren't planning on overly *shaping*- I really like the natural tree form as well. Just want to make sure we're caring for it appropriately.

The flush is gone now, of course, but it actually did really well this year!

Hello!

I have never known quite where to trim off the blooms on my friend's two potted lilacs. So, once again this year, I didn't do it. (One is Angel White, one is Pocahontas, I got them at Descanso. Great place for SoCal lilacs.)

Is it too late?

If not, where exactly do I trim? (Just basically under the seed pods, or somewhere else? I'm new at this, obviously.)

Also, do you have to trim, or is it optional? I just want to make sure they bloom again next year. They are not very big plants yet, so it's not like they're out of control or anything.

I also need to trim suckers. Is it the wrong time to do that? (I think the Angel White bloom may have been *on* the sucker, just fyi. Is that bad?)

Thanks for any help!!! Very much appreciated. This has been bugging me for a while.

Me again:

I searched again, looks like I used the wrong terms.

If this thread -- http://forums2.gardenweb.com/forums/load/shrubs/msg0616464919820.html --

answers my question about *where* to trim correctly, then please ignore that part of my post.

(It says, this late in the year, I will be okay if I trim just at the very bottom of the seed/blooms, but I shouldn't trim anything more than that.)

Sorry, I just got excited, I've been needing to find this out forever.

Need2see, assuming your plants are Syringa, there's no need to deadhead the old flowers unless you just don't like looking at them. Doing so, or not doing so, should have no bearing on next years' flowers. Many lilacs are way too big to do this and they bloom profusely every year.

Thanks, purpleinopp!!!