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The Unassuming Lilac

Native to eastern Europe, the common lilac has migrated far and wide in the 500 years since Ottoman gardeners sent plants to their peers in Europe. In North America, for example, the lilac arrived in the 1700s and can now can be found growing wild from Arkansas to Hudson Bay and British Columbia to Nova Scotia.

When gardeners love a plant, they share it. That explains in part the travels of the lilac. A hardy, reliable deciduous shrub that flowers generously, it earned its ticket. The flowers are prized as much for their perfume as their profusion; in fact, they are renowned for the sweetness and strength of their fragrance.

Nursery folk share credit for spreading the lilac. They learned early to keep an eye on their nurseries for new colors, leaf shapes, and plant sizes. So today we have hundreds of choices. You can glimpse the profusion by roaming the site of the International Lilac Society. Better yet, find a copy of Lilacs, a Gardener’s Encyclopedia, by Father John L. Fiala, who, over a long career, bred many cultivars of lilacs (and crabapples, but that’s a different book).

The lilac is multi-stemmed (it suckers--sends up new stems from its roots), and it branches freely, so it has a twiggy canopy. Each main twig ends in a panicle (a cluster of flowers) that can be 7 inches long with over a hundred flowers. The flower count on one mature shrub is in the thousands.

The flower colors range from white to near-blue and deep purple. The old favorite ‘President Lincoln’ is blue; ‘Edith Cavell’ and ‘Beauty of Moscow’ are white. There are doubles (flowers that have extra petals) such as ‘Mme. Lemoine’ (white). There’s a highly-prized picotee called ‘Sensation‘ (the flower petals are lilac edged with white). Yellow has not appeared (as it has not in magnolias), though some folks claim ‘Primrose’ and ‘White Swan’ are yellowish (the buds are yellowish but the flowers?).

The common lilac is one of the marker plants of the National Phenology Network (USA-NPN), which gathers the observations of scientists, educators and volunteers to measure the effect of climate changes on the life cycles of plants. The observations include yearly events such as first leaf and first flower. Both are coming earlier for the lilac and the network’s other indicator plants. For a good introduction to phenology, why it matters, how to join in, see this video.

By Mark Kane - the Groundskeeper, YourGardenShow.com

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