Wednesday, June 2, 2010

Lilac Chaste Tree

One of my favorite landscaping plants is the Lilac Chaste Tree. We have one in our courtyard and it is in full bloom right now, covered with bright bluish-lavender "spiky" flowers.

It is a perennial and needs to be cut back during the winter months, or early spring. Here is the way ours looked around the first of April ...

The flowers grow in 6"-12" spikes, and our tree blooms two or three times during the summer months.

A word of caution: Bumblebees love this plant, and will even spend the night on the flowers. However, when I took these pictures, some of which were up close, they were too busy gathering pollen to bother me.

I took this last picture in 2008, before we put the stone bridge across the pond.

To learn more about the Lilac Chaste Tree, you can click on the link.

6 comments:

RachelD said...

I've always loved those---their name to me was "candelabra bush" because the blooms looked like Liberace's piano stand. But I DO love your name for it---like graceful ladies in their demure dresses, perhaps lavender half-mourning.

The blue is just perfect for the green serenity of that spot.

Deb said...

so pretty...I love the shot of the bee...

Tonja said...

I've seen it, but never knew the name. It is vey pretty, and I like the fact that it blooms several times a year!

PAT said...

Breathtakingly gorgeous! I've never seen one of these.

Marjorie (Molly) Smith said...

Your lilac is beautiful.
Ours was so large last fall and then DH ran over it with his trailer. Afraid it didn't survive.
Molly

Sheila (TCW) said...

I've noticed this tree a lot this year and never knew the name of it. Thanks for all the great information. I love your courtyard, it's beautiful.