Hybridizing Lilacs

Hybridizing Lilacs. . , Lilac species cross-pollinate readily, allowing hybridizers to select for desired features. Lilac breeding has resulted in more than 1,600 named varieties., Common lilac (Syringa vulgaris) is native to Southeast Europe. It is thought to have been brought to Western Europe in the mid-16th century. By the early 1800s, French, Dutch, and German nurserymen were selecting, naming, and selling interesting lilac cultivars. However, hybridization involved a great deal of chance until the pioneering work of French nurseryman Victor Lemoine in the 1870s., Lemoine took a scientific approach by controlling pollination. He crossed the only known lilac cultivar to feature double flowers (those with more than four petals) with large-flowered varieties to create fragrant lilacs with large double flowers. Today the term French hybrids refers to the double-flowered lilacs whether or not they were bred in France., Another great Lemoine innovation is Syringa × hyacinthiflora, which blooms about ten days earlier than common lilac. Lemoine created this hybrid by fertilizing common lilac with the pollen of an earlier-blooming Asian lilac species (Syringa oblata). Lemoine's nursery continued breeding lilacs for three generations, producing more than 200 cultivars, which became the foundation of lilac hybridization during the following century. Later lilac breeders began to utilize more Asian lilac species, further enriching the diversity of lilacs available to modern gardeners.