Lilac Season
A friend told me yesterday that she is allergic to lilacs. She had my complete sorrow and sympathy. I can’t imagine spring without them.
We had several bushes of lilacs on my street growing up and they were free for the picking. No one ever complained when you pilfered a lilac bush – there were plenty to go around and everyone knew that lilacs are irresistible. We picked them for our mothers, grandmothers and our teachers. We buried our noses in the cool blooms and inhaled deeply. And the scent – that watery flowery scent captures the very essence of spring and hope. As well, a bunch of lilacs in the arms makes everyone beautiful.
There have been years when I sadly noticed that I somehow missed lilac season. I would see faded blossoms hanging forlornly from then almost all-green bushes on my drive home from work and I knew that my folly meant that it would be an entire twelve months before I would smell lilacs again. Twelve whole months.
In recent years, I discovered a number of “lilac venues” in my neck of the woods. There are a few botanical gardens that have long winding trails around hundreds of blooming lilac bushes. There are lilac festivals and even a house of lilacs which I plan to visit next month. I can’t wait.
Through time immortal, poets have written about the mystical lilac. Walt Whitman’s When Lilacs Last in the Door-Yard Bloom’d and Amy Lowell’s Lilacs are two that come to mind. I especially love when Lowell describes the color of lilacs as “false blue”. And once you think of something as false blue, you see the color everywhere – in silk dresses and old book covers and pretty glass vases.
If ever I were called upon to write a celestial shopping list for heaven, lilacs would hold the first spot.
14 Comments
Trish Saunders
I am enjoying this blog! Like so many others, I have fond memories of lilacs. My dear mother always insisted we cut the blossoms from the back only. I live in a condo now, and can only grow them in pots on my patio. I’ve given up trying to keep them growing. I just compost, and buy a new miniature bush each year. The only ones I can find are a hybrid, named Korean Lilacs. They’re smaller, and the scent isn’t quite as heavenly, but they’re very pretty. One makes do!
Thanks for the enjoyable post.
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Ann
Beautiful post ! Yes, lilacs grew in all the yards in my childhood neighborhood. We would cut bunches to put on the "May Altar" in St. Charles School. I can still smell them and see myself sitting in that classroom….OK, time to dig out my lilac candles!
Donna
My favorite lilac memory is sitting under a huge lilac bush at an elderly lady's house in the country. That plant must have been almost as old as she. We have a traditional lilac, one every-blooming plant and three Miss Kims. You could say we love our lilacs.
Donna
Lilacs due tend to weave into our childhood memories Donna! Thank you.
Carol Trotta
My parents had three lilac trees in the yard growing up, two false blue and one white!!! Loved when they would become full of blossoms and the air would become thick with there scent! Often picked the later on when visiting to bring back home with me😊
efstathia kositzidou
Lilac is Spring and Easter for me.In Greece Lilac is the flower that most of all means Easter.There was always a Lilac bush in our family houseyard and my mom used it for painting the Easter eggs also.Whereever i am lilac smell means Easter in my hometown.
Thank you so much for bringing back those memories.
Efi.
Donna
My pleasure! Thank you so much for following my blog!
Gramspearls
Good Morning Donna,
Isn't that the truth! Lilacs are Spring. I have a lilac scented candle I save for spring each year ( I stock up the year before) and the house smells like Spring until it's officially Summer. I look forward to the day when I light the first candle of Spring. Sublime.
Warmly, Kathleen
Ann
Me, too – bought a lilac candle last year and will now pull it out to enjoy the scent once more!
Donna
Enjoy it Ann!
Amy
I planted a lilac bush last year – I'm eager to see how it fared after our snow melts!
susie @ persimmon moon cottage
In our 65 year old subdivision there was an area that a creek/ditch ran through.In 1966 the creek/ditch was filled in and planted with trees and decorative shrubs. One of those plants was a purple (false blue)lilac
bush. We moved to this subdivision in 1978, so the lilac was very large when I first discovered it one spring. It was loaded with flowers. The scent was amazing. It was near the curb on a quiet street. I would just pull the car over and sit there and take in that beautiful fragrance. I never cut any of the flowers, thinking that others would then be able to enjoy them after I did. I did this every spring from 1978 until the spring of 2012. In the spring of 2013 I drove by to enjoy those beautiful lilacs, and the bush had been cut down to the ground. Not dug up, cut down. What unnecessary destruction. I couldn't imagine who would have done that or why. I cried a little bit about it and then tried to cheer myself up by thinking maybe it would come back from the roots. I drove by and checked several times and even the following spring, but it never came back.
Ever since that time I have wanted to plant my own lilac bushes in our yard, but somehow I have never managed to get it done. The false blue ones are my favorites. Maybe this is the year I will get that done.
Donna
Thank you Susie! I loved your story here and you write so well. Thank you!