Garden bloggers around the world have been galvanised into action by Lucy Corrander of Loose and Leafy with her Tree Following meme. At the last count, seventy-six people across seven countries now keep a monthly eye on a tree of their choice and report back. It's addictive stuff. You can keep up with a tamarillo in Melbourne, a Kousa Dogwood in Michigan or a Mulberry in Suffolk. Or, indeed, a rather sorry lilac in southern England. Mine.
Back in October, I reported on the lamented demise of our much-loved lilac in the front garden. St Jude, the patron saint of lost causes, had sent a storm to create a few of his own. At least, a lost cause is what I assumed it to be.
Just as I'd decided to follow my Bramley apple (showing a lot of blind wood, it offers the chance to check up on the effects of my pruning) I spotted the lilac. Despite being sawn in half, like a magician's assistant, leaving a bare stump which we intended to revisit with the chainsaw, in the last three weeks or so buds have burst from the stump.
The stump is still leaning at an angle of 45 degrees, so we're storing up problems if it grows too big. But I can't bear to dig it up now. New life is surging and it looks as if perhaps we'll have ourselves a bush, rather than a tree.
Or perhaps, as Husband suggests, it'll run out of steam in a couple of years and give up the ghost. We'll just have to wait and see. In the meantime, the snails seem particularly fond of it.
...Landscape Juice Network
Your lilac is one to watch ... and I love the snail!
Posted by: Caroline | Thursday, 08 May 2014 at 11:13 PM
Wow, that is an impressive survival story! A lilac bush sounds perfect if it manages to flower, they will be at eye - and nose - level, unlike the one that arches over the fence from next door and shades my greenhouse, I can barely see the flowers, let alone smell them!
Posted by: Janet/Plantaliscious | Friday, 09 May 2014 at 07:51 PM
It's interesting how those little leaf buds have caught your heart and turned your hand. Snails seem specially pretty at present. I expect there will be more of the clumpy brown kind as the season goes on.
Posted by: Lucy Corrander | Wednesday, 14 May 2014 at 06:26 PM
I hope it recovers for you. It amazes me how even mature trees can send new shoots out like this, if they have to. We have a Eucalyptus that looked totally dead after last year's cold winter - we were about to chop it down, when little bristly new shoots shot out all over the trunk! It recovered totally and looks back to normal now...I'm enjoying Tree Following too, 'my' tree is a little Alder sapling I planted a couple of years ago.
Posted by: Lucy | Wednesday, 14 May 2014 at 07:03 PM
Hi, Lucy C - yes, I've noticed the striped snails in particular abundance. It's so unfair on the clumpy ones as I'm much more lenient towards the pretty ones.
Lucy, it is amazing how trees recover. The urge to survive doesn't lie down easily. Alders are such pretty trees. Yours looks very eager.
For anyone who's wondering, you can see Lucy's tree at http://alderandash.wordpress.com/2014/05/14/tree-following-may/
Posted by: Helen | Thursday, 15 May 2014 at 02:46 PM