Hardly any lilac in Park City this year!

Park City lilacs usually bloom during the month of June. It may vary from the early part to the end of the month, but this year it simply didn’t happen. 

Where we live, perhaps no more than five percent of the lilacs bore flowers. There could be plenty of reasons for that, like poor pruning technique, lack of sun, poor soil conditions, bad fertilizing, drought-related stress and of course, frost. 

May was so cold that unseasonable and frequent late frosts prevented flowering. We had so many frosty mornings in the past two months that the flowers failed to come out; the blooms turned just brown and couldn’t display any flowers. 

This might seem counter-intuitive as lilacs are very cold hardy, but the emerging blooms can be critically sensitive to the cold and frost harm the shrubs ability to bloom. 

Well, there’s always next year!