Syringa 'Red Pixie' (lilac)

We adore our Red Pixie lilac bush because she's not only a lilac for regions with sizzling hot summers, but her flowers are what one wants out of a lilac - compelling, confident, and colorful. (I don't want to knock the two other zone 8a heat tolerant lilacs that I can recall by name, but their flowers never hooked me.) Red Pixie's flowers smell great too!

To continue about the flowers, the buds are burgundy and have a heft and dominance to them - you'll notice them. They open to pink-colored flowers that persist for at least 2 weeks. 

Since the flower heads don't open all at once, there is at first a two-tone bicolor effect with burgundy buds on some heads and other heads fully open pink. In all, between the buds opening and the flowering being fully open, we see flower color for at least 3 weeks in spring.

The leaves are round with a wavy margin - they are nice looking leaves.

We see bumble bees buzzing around the flowers, but we're shying away from calling this a pollinator plant. Anybody have any feedback about Syringa's quality for providing grazing pasture for spring honey bees? (Please comment in "Reviews.")

• Syringa Red Pixie solves the problem of lilacs being a shrub for climates with cool summers - this one doesn't notice how hot it gets in Zone 8a. Finally, a gorgeous and robust lilac for the heat.
• It's a spring flowering shrub for the mid to back of border plant - combines well with other plants in mixed perennial and shrub borders, but it has the guts to stand alone as a single specimen

• fragrant flowers
• deer resistant
• pollinator plant
• heat tolerant
• cold tolerant