Can a lilac not smell good? There is not much reason to buy it if it is not fragrant. I have read that Dwarf Korean Lilac will repeat if deadheaded.

harryshoe - not to say that they can't rebloom, but I trim the spent flowers off of my dwarf Korean lilac early each season because the plant looks much better without all the spent flowers / dead tips hanging there for the rest of the season. Darn thing hasn't ever re-bloomed.

"Can a lilac not smell good?"

Yes. In fact, some species downright stink. But those aren't commonly grown or available.

There is smelling good and there is smelling like a lilac. I was very disappointed when my Miss Kim bloomed. It is perfumed but it does not smell like a lilac to me. So I was wondering the same thing about Boomerang. Does it have the traditional lilac perfume?

Does anyone have a Bloomerang blooming now? Still wondering about fragrance and also whether it attracts butterflies.

We have butterflies occasionally visiting them, but I wouldn't call it a butterfly magnet. That's what Buddleja species are for.

As far as fragrance, the only lilacs that "smell like a lilac" are the S. vulgaris cultivars and hybrids. Nearly all lilacs are fragrant in some manner, and Bloomerang Purple is no exception. Fragrance is similar to other small flowered lilacs (which this definitely is) like Dwarf Korean, Miss Kim, Josee, laciniata, etc.

Ours are on their 3rd bloom cycle. Oddly enough I whacked them back 50%, and rather than form new leaf buds and start growing, the axillary flower buds pushed out and started to bloom.

I think this will be a good garden-worthy plant, but may be a little more picky about its growing conditions. Watch for more colors in the Bloomerange series in the future.

The Plant Geek
www.confessionsofaplantgeek.blogspot.com

Interestingly, I just noticed a bloom on my Dwarf Korean Lilac yesterday. It's 7-8 years old. First time.

I feel the fragrance of DKL is just as good (though not the same) as on my traditional S. vulgaris plants.

hmm i thought they all smelled good but guess its a good thing i read this before i bought some

Japanese tree lilac is commonly sold and stinks like privet. I imagine similar Peking lilac does also. Saw Bloomerang for the first time today, there was one cluster on one plant in the grouping at the garden center. Color and fragrance good enough for me to think of trying it, until I saw the wispy plants in ~2 gallon pots were 30 bucks. Each looked like it was as small as a liner or band earlier this year, before the long wobbly shoots on them now were pushed.

The more I see of this the more I like it. Good one to pick up on sale somewhere, it is still blooming at outlets here.

I bought a small Bloomerang in bloom at the beginning of summer, it has not rebloomed, nor did my Josee although they both put on some new growth. I guess next summer might be a better test.

I just bought some Bloomerang lilac bushes, and planted them about a month ago. They were about one-gallon size. They were blooming when I bought them-----and I can tell you I had one fragrant SUV on the ride home. I was wondering if I need to clip back the blooms now that they are spent.

If you want a great-smelling tree, I just recently returned from a trip to my mother's, and on their main street they had these med. sized trees with white blossoms that smelled so fragrant like lilacs. I e-mailed the Chamber of Commerce, and they told me that they were Japanese lilac trees. I just ordered a couple from a mail-order nursery in Wisconsin.