Propagation
Stratify fresh seeds during winter and sow in pots during spring and place in a cold frame to germinate.

Take soft tip cuttings of non-flowering shoots during late spring to early summer.
Divide suckers during spring or in autumn.

Note:
Lilac may also be propagated from layering, root cuttings and grafted or budded onto other Lilacs or Privet rootstock.
The shrub may also be cut back hard and transplanted, requiring 2 to 3 years to recover.

Pruning
Care should be taken when pruning lilacs as the flowers are produced on the previous season’s growth. Unpruned shrubs will produce many more flowers regularly and a hard prune of old plants will inhibit the flowering for up to two years until the new wood has matured. They will tolerates a light prune to bushy up immediately after flowering before the new buds are formed.

Botanic information
Leaf: The glabrous light green leaves are ovate to broad-ovate up to 80 mm (3⅛ in) wide with an acuminate apex and a truncate base, with a petiole up to 30mm (1¼in) long. The small reddish buds are up to 3mm (⅛in) long with 2-pairs of scales.

Flower: The tubulate flowers have a tubular base up to 10 mm long with 4-expanding lobes. The species produces single flowers and that many cultivars have double flowers that are arranged in a dense conical panicle that is up to 125mm (8in) long and appears from late spring to early summer. The imbricate brownish buds are found at the end of the stems and are up to 10mm (⅓in) long.

Fruit: The leathery textured beaked pea-shaped dehiscent capsule is green ageing to brown and contains numerous seeds. The small seeds are viable but the plant is commonly reproduced vegetatively to maintain true to type.