Many, oh many, tender and boring In the world of sadness, flowers wither Two-lobed, even sonorous ... Lilac happiness is five petals!
Teffi. Lilacs have dark happiness ...
In Moscow, it finally warmed up, the short period of primroses was replaced by the flowering of lilacs. It has become scarce in the city, it has remained an adornment, mainly, of historical territories - VVTs, Sokolniki, Kolomenskoye, the territory of Moscow State University on Vorobyovy Gory and old parks. Large collections of lilacs are maintained in the Botanical Garden of Moscow State University and the Main Botanical Garden named after V.I. N.V. Tsitsina. We are returning from a tour of the lilac site from the Moscow State University Botsada, full of delight. Admire, here are just some varieties of domestic and foreign selection, blooming in the parterre of the botanical garden, filled with their delicious and varied aromas.
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At the monument to Mikhail Lomonosov, opposite the main building of Moscow State University, a group of young people breaks lilacs for a girl. And this is no longer a bouquet, but a whole bunch! Here they are in the photo - the lucky ones who study at Moscow State University. We cannot pass by and interfere, but in response to the remark we hear: "Lilacs are useful, next year it will bloom even better!"
For some reason, this opinion has become entrenched in the minds of many people, probably due to some illiterate publications. We want to dispel it in order to prevent such harmful actions.
Pay attention to a couple of young shoots growing out from under the lilac inflorescence - they will bloom next year. If you break a branch or even cut a lilac for a bouquet, it loses some of these shoots. And the larger your bouquet, the less resources the lilac bush will have for flowering next year.
They say that it is better to break lilacs, not cut them, and this is also not true. Roughly broken off branches remain with uneven wounds at the ends of the shoots, often with peeling and drooping bark, which can act as gateways for pathogens. Therefore, it is better to cut lilacs with pruning shears, exactly across, so that the area of the wound is as small as possible. Lilac withers quickly, you will never take it home fresh. It will straighten out, saturated with moisture in the water, but it will not stand for long, a maximum of two days. Is it worth it for the sake of this to deprive yourself and others of the pleasure of admiring flowering bushes ?!
Like all woody plants, lilacs need pruning. It is necessary not only in order to maintain a beautiful habit of the bush, but also in order to stimulate the growth of young growths, which subsequently bloom. Pruning should be done correctly and at the right time, in early spring, before sap flow begins. And faded inflorescences are removed immediately after wilting. It is pruning, and not the barbaric breaking off of branches, that forms the correct development and laying of inflorescences. Old urban plantings no longer give growth, they are bare from below, and require the most careful preservation. After all, the same lilacs, chestnuts and other plants, beautifully framing the monument to Lomonosov, were planted a long time ago, immediately after the construction of the Moscow State University complex of buildings. The plantings were planned by the best specialists in the country, thanks to whose work the territory of Moscow State University on Vorobyovy Gory still remains one of the most beautiful landscape ensembles in the capital. I would not like to see any elements dropped from the compositions.
The older the bush, the less willingly it gives young shoots. And if the lilacs are plucked in large branches in excessive quantities, she refuses to give them at all. So you can simply "break" or "cut" the lilac so much that it will stop actively growing and blooming. By the way, this technique is sometimes used in landscape design. Look at this photo, taken in Dusseldorf - the linden tree is deliberately "stabbed" so that it can hardly give any greenery. In my opinion, plants with greenery are still more beautiful than their bare architectural silhouettes.
Lilacs can live for a very long time, up to 100 years. Many beautiful old bushes have survived, for example, in the estate of Alexander Blok Shakhmatovo near Moscow. They, together with other plants, made it possible to determine the location of buildings during the restoration of the burned-down estate. You see how important it is at times to preserve historical plantings.
On the territory of Moscow, there are unique lilacs of the selection of Leonid Alekseevich Kolesnikov, the creator of the unsurpassed variety "Beauty of Moscow" and several hundred more varieties of lilacs, some of which are now considered lost. Experts are looking for them and trying to identify them in order to return our national heritage. But on some of the bushes present in urban landscaping, there is no longer any material for reproduction. Lilac is poorly cuttings, it is usually propagated by grafting, and in recent decades, methods of clonal micropropagation (growing from the meristem) have begun to be used. As you reach out for a fragrant lilac twig in the city, think that this bush may be the only specimen of this variety, and the fruits of a breeder's life-long labor may be lost to us forever.
And who decided that it was possible to pluck at least one branch of lilac at the Lomonosov monument or in another public place? This is ordinary vandalism with no justification. Why is there enough culture in Japan to simply admire the cherry blossoms, peonies, chrysanthemums and even tiny liverworts during the holidays, without encroaching on plants, so that this spectacle will be enough for many generations, but we do not?
Those students whom we, the graduates of the biology department of Moscow State University 25 years ago, found at the scene of the crime, are advised to come as volunteers to the Botanical Gardens of Moscow State University and unselfishly work there with plants next to specialists. We think that then everything will immediately fall into place in the mind. We invite everyone, here is a link to a site for volunteers, whose help the garden really needs.
For more visual information, we advise everyone to watch the videos of Irina Borisovna Okuneva, candidate of biological sciences, senior researcher and curator of the collection of lilacs of the GBS named after V.I. N.V. Tsitsina, from which you will learn in detail, mis it possible to break lilacs, how to cut lilac inflorescences, and many more useful things about this culture.
