Madame Lemoine Bare Root Lilac Bush

About Madame Lemoine Bare Root Lilac Bush

Syringa vulgaris ‘Madame Lemoine’
Breeder: Victor Lemoine | Introduced: 1890 | Type: French Lilac | Hardiness: Zones 3–7

🤍 Pure white, fully double and wonderfully fragrant—Madame Lemoine has been setting the standard for white lilacs for more than 130 years.

Madame Lemoine is one of the most celebrated white lilacs ever introduced. Creamy-yellow buds open into masses of pure white, fully double flowers, creating thick, almost fluffy panicles that cover the shrub in late spring.

The double blossoms give Madame Lemoine an especially lush appearance—almost like tiny white roses gathered together into enormous fragrant bouquets.

🌸 Flower & Garden Details

Flower Color: Creamy-yellow buds opening pure white
Bloom: Fully double flowers in dense panicles
Fragrance: Sweet, classic lilac fragrance
Bloom Season: Mid- to late spring
Foliage: Fresh green, heart-shaped leaves
Habit: Bushy, upright and spreading with age
Size: Approximately 8–12 feet tall and wide at maturity
Light: Full sun
Hardiness: USDA Zones 3–7
Cut Flower: Exceptional
Best Uses: Cutting gardens, fragrance gardens, flowering hedges, cottage gardens and specimen plantings

🇫🇷 A Love Story from the Lemoine Nursery

Madame Lemoine was introduced in 1890 by legendary French plant breeder Victor Lemoine of Nancy, France.

And this one was personal.

Lemoine named the beautiful white lilac for his wife, Marie Louise Lemoine, who worked alongside him in the family's famous nursery.

Victor Lemoine became one of the most influential ornamental plant breeders of the 19th and early 20th centuries, and his breeding work transformed the lilac world. His introductions brought gardeners richer colors, larger flower clusters and spectacular double-flowered forms.

Madame Lemoine became one of his masterpieces.

More than 130 years later, it remains one of the classic standards against which other double-white lilacs are compared.

🤍 Why Grace Rose Farm Loves It

This is the white lilac for the gardener who loves flowers that look almost too beautiful to be real.

Those densely double blossoms give Madame Lemoine a romantic quality that feels right at home alongside roses.

And in a cutting garden?

She's spectacular.

Pair her with the wine-purple flowers of Charles Joly or Ludwig Spaeth for an old-world French combination, or plant her with Beauty of Moscow for layers of blush, cream and white.

We also love the story behind her.

A legendary French breeder naming one of his most beautiful white lilacs for his wife?

That's exactly the kind of plant love story we want in the Grace Rose Farm garden.

🌿 Growing & Care

Plant Madame Lemoine in full sun and fertile, well-drained soil. Good sunlight encourages abundant flowering, while adequate spacing allows this vigorous heirloom lilac to develop into a magnificent mature shrub.

Water deeply during establishment and mulch around the root zone while keeping mulch away from the stems.

If pruning is necessary, do it immediately after flowering. Madame Lemoine blooms on old wood and begins developing the following year's flower buds after its spring display.