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Midwest Gardening Minnesota Gardening garden

Vicious Little Critters

Molly D. Zone4B

last year

Well, we had a vole explosion this year under all our snow. Here’s what’s left of one of my Prairie Petite Lilacs. Not much. The other two are fine. My question is should I cut the plant low to the ground? It is so slow growing that I’m not sure it will ever recover. Should I just cut my losses and buy a new plant?

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Comments (3)

ken_adrian Adrian MI cold Z5
last year
i would leave it alone until about july.. to see if it sprouts..

i cant believe anyone would graft lilac.. so if it comes back.. it should be true to type ...

if you can find a replacement .. i would probably buy it.. it its that important to have a third.. crikey.. all my lilacs are 10 feet round.. so i cant imagine 3 planted together.. especially that close to that house..

sooo .... i might just move the other tow about 10- feet from that pretty siding.. and forget about the third plant altogether.. and if this one recover.. so be it..

i might also pot it for this season.. see what the roots look like. and then put the pot in full bright shade for the summer.. and then replant it in fall.. its usually pretty easy to tell if roots are viable.. regardless of what the dead sticks above look like...

ken
Molly D. Zone4B thanked ken_adrian Adrian MI cold Z5
Molly D. Zone4B
Original Author
last year
Ken-

Thank you for all your thoughts! These are some miniature variety…”Prairie Petite“ is what they told me when planted 5 years ago. So that’s five years of growth. I do have big lilacs too elsewhere…”Bloomerang”. I really like your idea to dig it up and put it in a pot…never thought of that so that’s what I’m going to do! Thanks!
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Nothing's eating mine but their growth has been stalled all week and they may not have grown any the week before either. I think the swing in temperatures from the 80s to the 30s to the 70s to the 40s over and over again has been too much for them. Well, that and the fact that our rainfall is a little less than half of average for the year-to-date so far. I even planted them on time and they still aren't happy. I'm giving them a few more days and then if they don't grow and do something, I'll yank them out and replace them with beans. I thought I'd at least wait until the next round of severe weather passes through. It is possible it will rain enough to kick them back into growing, or a tornado will carry them away, or hail will smash the plants to smithereens. Even in 2011 they grew better than they are this year, though it was very hot very early and they produced poorly.
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I forgot to say that the pic in the link is a meadow vole. chickenmom, I can't tell that he did any damage. The area that he took shelter has some woody shrubs and coreopsis with ice plant as a ground cover. I think he was trying to get out of the rain. I've been working around that area today and didn't see anything. Also, the dog was there and she can sniff out any intruder. So, maybe he moved on. I sure hope so! I don't think it's possible to have the underground variety of moles and voles here. We're on the side of a hill and it's almost solid rock. I suppose they have actual soil in the valleys... Here is a link that might be useful:
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Molly D. Zone4B
Original Author
last year
Here’s a better picture of 3 other ones I have..all 5 yrs old. They make tiny little purple flowers.

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