Any Lilac Bush Experts?

[Montana Jim]

I am working on landscaping around and under my huge lilac bushes and am wondering only this:

Will landscaping fabric (ground cover) prohibit lilac sprouts / ground borne suckers from growing?

Note: These bushes are around 20 feet tall and I have them trimmed from the ground up to look more like trees, but many suckers are growing from old long-removed stumps and roots (I guess) and those are the ones I want to prevent next year.

 

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[Mona Lisa]

Jimtana?!? Aren't you from Rochester, New York, home of the illustrious Lilac Festival? Shouldn't you know these things? Isn't it taught in the Rochester Elementary Schools or something?

Sorry, I can't help you...but I can harass you a little, right?

 

[Montana Jim]

Mona Lisa... is that at the lilac festival in Rochester?

Yea - you would think since it's the NY State "bush" that I might know, but... I am lilac-tarded

And, you can harass me all you want to...

 

[MD Dog]

Lilac suckers Jim are next to impossible to stop. No landscape fabric won't stop them. I even tried using a concrete wall around them set at two feet deep. The roots just went deeper and under, they even in some cases went over the wall that was six inches high. Sorry best bet is to keep cutting em of at ground level, short of a herbicide.

 

[Montana Jim]

Lilac suckers Jim are next to impossible to stop. No landscape fabric won't stop them. I even tried using a concrete wall around them set at two feet deep. The roots just went deeper and under, they even in some cases went over the wall that was six inches high. Sorry best bet is to keep cutting em of at ground level, short of a herbicide.

Okay... damnit.

I was hoping to place some bark chips over the fabric and kind of prevent the suckers that are three feet from the main trunks from comming up. I know I will always need to attend to the sprouts from the main bunch.

Man... that sucks.

Thanks for the advice

 

[Mona Lisa]

Lilac suckers Jim are next to impossible to stop. No landscape fabric won't stop them. I even tried using a concrete wall around them set at two feet deep. The roots just went deeper and under, they even in some cases went over the wall that was six inches high. Sorry best bet is to keep cutting em of at ground level, short of a herbicide.

Yup...that's what I was going to say.

 

[flyinguy]

Jimtana?!? Aren't you from Rochester, New York, home of the illustrious Lilac Festival? Shouldn't you know these things? Isn't it taught in the Rochester Elementary Schools or something?

Sorry, I can't help you...but I can harass you a little, right?

so beautiful! and the lilac too!

 

[flyinguy]

jim, i love to grow stuff but i suck bad. my wife becky is a natural. i go on cooperative extention for your county. they are really smart like you. i butchered ours and got yelled at by becky. not my first dance.

 

[Siegfried Schlagrule]

My big lilacs were killed by a flood. Maybe you could rig up a cofferdam around the main trunk to keep it dry and have the shoots under water for a week. good luck, siegfried schlagrule

 

[Old Dog]

Jim,

Have you tried Roundup?

I once (accidentally) killed one completely with Weed Be Gone,
spraying on a windy day.
I knpw, I know...
Should have known better.
I was young and dumb,
My Mom wasn't very happy either.

LOL
Thom