Question
Hi, hope you can help me here. I had three lilac trees in my garden, last year one of them budded up, then the buds turned a dark, almost black colour and nothing flowered, no leaves either. I left it for the summer, nothing developed, so pulled it out at the end of the year. The tree had not died but the root area appeared to have rotted as I was able to pull it out by hand!

My other trees were ok. This year, one of the others appears to be going the same way. Can you possibly tell me what is happening here?? The trees are about 7 years old.

Look forward to hearing from you with any possible advice

Thanks... Phillip Laybourne
England,

Answer
Dear Phillip, I particularly hate to hear of problems with lilacs.  Basically, there are three things that I can think of that could cause problems like these.  The first is moles, which sometimes are hard to notice until they have done their damage.  That just came to mind when the one plant came up so easily.  Another problem would be a type of blight (there are several) which would account for the blackened areas.  This sounds like a pretty likely reason for the damage.  In this case, cut off and destroy any blackened areas well below the area of damage, clean up any fallen leaves or buds, clean your equipment, and spray with mancozeb and copper spray which you should be able to find.  (Let me know if you can't locate the spray)  Also you could have some fungal root rot, so you could also drench the roots with a product containing NEEM or another fungicide, then dry the soil out.  One thing for certain, I think the area is suffering from poor drainage.  See what you can do to improve the drainage in this area, try to reduce the amount of water if possible, and hopefully the conditions will improve.  One word of caution, if the plants all die in that area, then DON'T replant lilacs in that area.  Choose an area with better drainage and away from the soil in that area.  I think if you work on the drainage, prune the bad areas, and spray with the mancozeb and copper spray, you should have good luck.  Let me know if you need further assistance.  Melissa