Lilacs offer color choice from white to purple
Q: Growing on my neighbors’ side of a shared fence there is a plant wearing bright white flower clusters now. I’ve smelled the flowers and they smell like lilacs. Is there such a thing? A white lilac? — N.S., Albuquerque
A: Yup, there sure are lilacs that offer white-colored flowers! In fact, there are lots of color choices when choosing a lilac. Variety dependent, lilacs offer blooms in the barest pink color, some in traditional pastel purple and like the one you are smelling — bright white. You can find lilacs that offer blooms of a dark purple-red bloom color, while others wear a good lilac-purple color, some have bi-colored petals, and ones that have a nifty blue-pastel purple color to the flowers.
If you’re looking for a lilac of a different color, try our local nurseries first for the best selection of varied choices. Garden centers tend to keep to the more traditional choices. You can let your fingers do the shopping on the internet, too. Type in “lilac bushes for sale” and see just how many sites pop up offering choices galore.
What is neat about lilacs is how easy they grow around here. They aren’t bothered by many pests and as far as the sturdiness they offer, they’re hard to beat. In fact, they require a certain amount of chilling in order to bloom really well. Perfect for the Albuquerque area.
Q: I have a couple of pots I planted last fall full of pansies and they have given me color all winter long. Will they continue throughout the summer here? — L.C., West Side
A:
Usually, pots planted with pansies tend to get crumpled looking once the heat of the year comes on — not because the pansy is done, so to speak, just because they prefer a cooler environment to live in.
With that, if you could move your pots to a more shaded, cooler environment I’d say they’d handle summer and should rebound once we come out of the impending heat. In your gardens, look for spots that have little to no direct sun and offer no reflective heat bouncing off walls or fences.
Keep the pots dampened and be sure to deadhead the spent flowers religiously. If you allow the pansy plants to wear finished blooms they’ll be more apt to think they are finished and give up the ghost. So aim to keep them cool, shaded, deadheaded and watered enough to be supported, and they can make it through the summer months.
Q: I wanted to get my mom an Easter lily but worried because she suffers from allergies. What can I do to brighten her day but not contribute to her allergies? — H.D., West Side
A:
Well, you’re in luck! Go ahead and get a beautiful blooming plant for mom and assure her it probably won’t affect her health.
At the beginning of my nursery career, the company I worked for had a huge teaching promotion that “pretty flowers don’t cause allergies.” And for the most part, it’s true!
It’s the plants that make “flowers” that we don’t recognize as flowers that are making her life miserable. Plants like junipers, elm, mulberry and cottonwood trees and some grasses that do have flowers but unless you know what those blooms look like you wouldn’t think they are flowers.
So get mom lots of pretty blooms and know that she’s not going to be troubled by them.
Need tips on growing your garden? Tracey Fitzgibbon is a certified nurseryman. Send your gardenrelated questions to Digging In, Rio West, P.O. Drawer J, Albuquerque, NM 87103.