As usual, it rained for Calgary's "Lilac Festival" this year and the lilacs started to bloom only a couple days later!
Design books say to plant shrubs with multi-season interest (eg. spring flowers, summer fruit, fall colour, interesting bark in winter). Lilacs are only interesting in spring, in my opinion, but who can resist? And the smell...!!!
My street in a 50-year old neighbourhood has a lilac planted in front of every house, and they're still going strong. Some people don't prune them very well, though. If you do prune, make sure to do it right after it finishes flowering because they set their flower buds for next year right away. If you prune later in the year you will cut off all next year's flowers.
If you don't have space for a giant, old-fashioned variety, there are new smaller ones (eg. dwarf Korean, Miss Kim) and also the Japanese tree lilac which is very popular now.
Drought tolerant.
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