The single-petaled flowers of ‘Dark Night’ lilac
Long-time readers may have been able to deduce my bias to featuring the plants of my mother’s garden of my youth: irises, larkspurs, and lady’s-slippers. One notable omission, though, has been lilacs. These featured prominently in our Canadian prairie farmyard, as both a hedge alongside the road and a few plantings in the garden.
The main reason for the lack of lilac entries is plants often perform poorly locally. There are few to be found in cultivation and in local botanical gardens. No lilacs, no photographs. However, a couple years ago on a trip back from Portland, Oregon, I finally stepped into the Hulda Klager Lilac Gardens in Woodland, Washington. There, I had a chance to prompt some memories while photographing their diverse collection of nearly one hundred lilac cultivars. Hulda Klager was a prominent lilac breeder, hybridizing over a hundred new cultivars in her lifetime. For a few more photographs of the garden and its lilacs, you can read Forrest Campbell’s article Hulda Klager Lilac Garden via Pacific Horticulture magazine.
I can guarantee that Syringa × hyacinthiflora ‘Dark Night’ was not a lilac cultivar that we grew in our cold-wintered continental climate yard. Most lilacs require hours of winter chill for buds to mature (and thereby flower profusely). ‘Dark Night’ lilac is one of a number of cultivars bred specifically for milder climates through southern California’s Rancho del Descanso (better known these days as Descanso Gardens). This breeding program started in the mid-20th-century under Walter Lammerts and continued under John Sobeck; over a dozen superior cultivars for mild climates have been introduced, collectively known as the Descanso Hybrids. You can read more about ‘Dark Night’ lilac in a gardening situation courtesy of Paghat: Syringa × hyacinthiflora ‘Dark Night’.
A snippet from this poem seems like a fitting conclusion today: “When Lilacs Last in the Dooryard Bloom’d” (by Walt Whitman), via the Poetry Foundation:
In the dooryard fronting an old farm-house near the white-wash’d palings,
Stands the lilac-bush tall-growing with heart-shaped leaves of rich green,
With many a pointed blossom rising delicate, with the perfume strong I love,
With every leaf a miracle—and from this bush in the dooryard,
With delicate-color’d blossoms and heart-shaped leaves of rich green,
A sprig with its flower I break.
I visited this garden ~25 years ago, and in addition to the lilacs, I remember large specimens of Sciadopitys verticillata and Magnolia denudata (Photo of latter attached).
There are absolutely some large specimen plants still on the property!
Beautiful ×
What a stunningly beautiful photograph this is, Daniel. I could even smell the lovely lilac perfume before catching myself that this was happening.
On a day to day basis it is actually your commentaries which most interest me. You express thoughtful perspectives and I learn from your experience and understanding.
Thank you!
Thanks for bringing up that many types of lilacs require lots of cold to bloom well. I have one that in some years does not bloom at all. It is located in the foothills east of Chico CA. at 2500 ft. There once was quite a bit of snow here but not much in the last six years.
But the lilac is very “deer resistant”, which is necessary for survival around here.
Funny. Immediately I saw the picture it reminded me of my mother’s favourite lilac which was also a dark colour just like the picture. We had a several bushes of it in our garden in West London and the perfume was gorgeous. Quite a lot hung over the fence and people often asked if they could pick a bunch (and sometimes just did it!). Thank you for the memory.
Lilacs don’t do well in Missouri either. we should have plenty of the appropriate range of cold temperature, and those that live (and do not get eaten by deer which seem to really like the flowers) do bloom. I understand that here it is the lilac borer that kills even slightly older trunks and so we only have 4-5 foot high new sprouts :(. anything in any of the breeding prgrams that would select for resistance to borers?
oh for smellavision via the internet. Reminded me of my visit to Manito Park in Spokane, Washington. There is a wonderful grove of lilacs in the park.
This morning a friend and I visited the Conservatory Garden in NYC’s Central Park, hoping to see the tulip display, but we were a little early.The daffs were out, but not most of the tulips, except the species tulips. Still, we were greeted by the lilac you feature today. Thank you.
The garden is my favourite ‘path’ to family and the hedge of lilacs along the front of my Grandparent’s home in Prince George is a favourite memory. However, the hedge and urge to snap branches and bring them indoors was the bane of at least one’s aunt’s life since she was very allergic and no one suspected the connection between the flowers and her annual spring suffering. Luckily we know more now and I resist the urge to bring the flowers indoors!
This is a lovely post, bringing back memories of lilacs lining a short gravel drive at our Syracuse, NY home, in the fifties. There were traditional lavender lilacs, a few darker purple, and one white. I have no idea what the varieties were, but it was heaven. Living many years in NYC, I would always buy myself a bunch in May, for the memory and the scent, which are so closely intertwined.
I’d never really seen lilacs until visiting a friend in Athens, Georgia, several years back. She had one able to withstand the heat and bloom with less cool. There was a spray in my bedroom – the scent overtook the whole room! I couldn’t sleep because of it but I didn’t care, it was too glorious. I’ve wanted one ever since, but I doubt even those newer ones would make it in New Orleans.
In the middle of TX I miss these plants so bad! I grew up with them in PA.
We are having an early spring in Southern Maryland this year. Tulips and all are in full bloom. I could almost smell that lilac.
My memories of my youth in suburban New York City include lying in bed in the morning and smelling the hedgerow of lilacs. There are a few species that grow in S. Md., but we do not have the intense cold as you so aptly pointed out which is needed for great blooms. Another memory; growing along with the lilacs was kerria japonica which I have presently blooming in my garden. A welcome splash of gold in the early spring landscape. Keep up the wonderful photos and apt descriptions. They have become an important start to my day.
The Hulda Klager Lilac Gardens makes for a nice rest stop driving south from Seattle – it’s very few blocks from the highway, but very removed from it in feel. It puts one in a much better mood for tackling the approach to Portland.
I like looking for 5-petaled flowers – gives me extra time to enjoy the fragrance of the blossoms. Or imagine I’m smelling them – I found two 5-petaled ones in this photo.
They seem to do fine in Parksville BC – we had 3 old bushes on our property that hadn’t been tended for 40 years. So far 2 are doing well here in Victoria too – plant sale bargains so no idea what their names are. I tend to think that lilacs are so present in the prairies and east because there isn’t as much choice in fragrant blooming shrubs plus they are tough shrubs..
Yes, I imagine they would do better in a climate that is somewhat drier than Vancouver (Parksville around 80% of the precipitation, Victoria around 50% that of Vancouver). Though, interestingly, Woodland receives about as much as Vancouver. Hmm.
Thanks for the poem. I know how profoundly I was affected as a child of eleven years old when John Kennedy was assassinated. It gives me an idea of how Whitman felt when Lincoln was murdered. The poem is so moving. And points out how intertwined our memories become of a tragedy and what is growing in our garden at the time of the tragedy. Lilacs. Scent is so powerful. Lilacs and Lincoln. Our chorus sang an abbreviated version of this poem a few years back. Music and words and the scent of lilacs.
Thanks for the joyful memories! My mother loved lilacs. My vivid memory is of her carefully arranging dark purple lilacs with deep pink tulips.
I join the chorus of thank yous for every aspect of your posts. Thank you for all you do to make them so exquisite. I learn so much and feel more connected to nature.
Best wishes!
Jaime
Like others have expressed, my mother loved lilacs. We had some in our yard. Each spring the entire family (parents, five children) went to the Morton Arboretum (Lisle, IL near Chicago) to view and smell the lilacs in their large collection. I remember running around and smelling every bush. Sure wish they grew in Florida.
Thank you, Daniel
Erica
It seems many of us from the Northeast have fond memories of lilacs! They grew along the edge of the yard at the house I grew up in in NJ. They were at least 12 feet tall, with most of the flowers up near the top. (Our NYC born & raised parents didn’t know about plants :-)) My aunt used to come over with a ladder to cut them for bouquets. We have them at our house here in RI where they do very well. I can’t bring the cut flowers in, they make me sneeze. Love them anyway!
I had a gorgeous lilac when I moved into my home in northeast Oklahoma. The scent carried to the far side of my neighbor’s property (well over a half acre away). Assuming lilacs performed well here, I tried others and none were happy. Eventually, we realized the roots of the lilac had invaded the plumbing system and once it no longer had an endless supply of water, it became very unhappy and did not perform well. I moved the last piece to the back of my property and forgot about it. A few years later I realized the lilac was doing well in a spot where it was basically ignored. I will never know the exact cultivar, but my closest guess it is a Syringa ‘Miss Kim’ sold in nurseries. Since it can bloom in the fall when the heat spell breaks, it does not seem to have the chill hours requirement Daniel mentions. But the flower buds are killed by late spring freezes if they have started to emerge so a bloom every year is not guaranteed.