I recently purchased two Japanese Ivory Silk lilacs with the intention of growing them as trees. They are potted stock with multiple trunks. What do I do to create single trunk trees from these? Is it advisible to knock them from the pots and select the best trunk and remove the others, or do I just prune the unwanted trunks to ground level?
You should have bought ones already trained by the nursery to have single trunks. How tall are the bush-form ones you got instead?
The ones from the nursery are five to six feet tall with four to six trunks. I am thinking about bare rooting them and selecting the best trunk and cutting the rest, Might do that to one of them and see what happens. What do you think?
Too far along. Would be better to get ones already trained to single stems, and let these remain as bushes.
What would be the harm in trying to trim them down the trunks and create a single trunk? The absolute worse would be that all the trunks would die, but being lilacs cuttings could be rooted. I think I might try to train one to a single trunk and leave the other as a bush, kind of a cowards compromise!
