We have Mike in Canton, “my question is, I have a lilac bush that was given to me by my mother which was given to her by my grandmother, and she gave it to me in a pot that was very small. And then it kind of took off and then I had to just plant it before the wintertime. I put it in my front yard about a year ago, but it doesn’t seem to be thriving. It hasn’t bloomed since I’ve had it, and the front of my house gets afternoon sun.”

So one of the things I’d ask you to do if you’re near one of the nurseries, definitely snap a picture of it from a distance, and then also up close of the leaves themselves.

There are a few things that can affect lilacs with all the rain. I have seen powdery mildew on the lilacs this year. There’s not a ton of insects that get on them.

All right, so you’re getting at least four or five hours of afternoon sun on this plant. It’s actually in a fine spot. It isn’t uncommon for a young plant that’s just been planted into the ground to really focus on rooting in. I would definitely fertilize it with either the all-season fertilizer or triple super phosphate, being that it’s a young plant.

Triple super phosphate is a special fertilizer designed to make a plant root in and to also make it bloom. Those are both things that are important for your situation. It’s a newer plant, you want to make sure it roots into the ground and then you want to make sure there’s ample Phosphorus in the soil so the plant can produce the blooms. 

They’re gonna produce their blooms next year early on and you should see some flowers in May with that. It’s not uncommon in the first year going into the ground that the plant doesn’t throw a lot of flowers.

Marlena has a question about geraniums. “I have probably six pots of geraniums mixed in with some other flowers, most are not blooming fully. Why not?”

What are you fertilizing? Not every time should I usually they tell you on the package don’t don’t use it every time you water Well with those I mean honestly, we usually do as long as you’re following the instructions on the package You can fertilize every time and especially if you’re not seeing a good bloom going on, it may just be lacking something.

 I would honestly try to use something like the petunia feed or or even the Jack’s Bloom Booster would help, because it doesn’t even sound like the blooms are forming. A lot of the other plants could be sucking some nutrients out of that too.

They love heat and they love the sun, so I don’t know if you have them in different locations. You may find one’s doing a little better than another and that may be one of the reasons why. They are feeders, too, so you definitely want to give them fertilizer. 

That would still probably bloom on their own, but everything is gonna be a slower reaction. Basically the lack of sunlight slows the whole process down. It’ll bloom, you’ll trim the bloom head off, a new bloom will come eventually, but it happens much faster in a full sun environment.

Yeah, the other thing about geraniums is going in there and cutting off the whole stem of it. I have a pair of scissors in the garage, that’s all they’re used for. I can hold the old bloom head at the top, and stick those long scissors down in there and nip it off.

I mean it really helps a lot if you know when you’re trimming off the dead and the spent blooms. You’re gonna encourage more growth and more flowers, because if the plant is basically at the end of its life cycle and trying to produce seed and be done.

So cut that off, and a clean cut heals a lot quicker than a tear.