Lilacs

The end of spring and beginning of summer is one of the most magical times in the garden: April’s overture of bulbs and exquisite flowering trees has faded back, but now we get to the real melody of the flower garden–the timeless flowers of transcendent beauty like irises, lilies, roses, and…lilacs.

Flower aficionados may now be raising their eyebrows. The flowers of lilacs are pretty enough in a nondescript way: they look like fuzzy lavender dumplings on deep green broad-leafed trees, but they are not like lilies and roses, the peerless queens of opulent beauty.  Why am I mentioning them here?  The answer is obvious to people who love gardens, but it is a difficult answer to show on a blog.  Honeysuckles, jasmine, gardenias, and roses are all famous for their scent, but, to my nose, nothing smells as paradisiacal as lilacs. Their smell of spicy honey is a sensory experience all to itself.  I can’t even think of how to properly describe it except as lilac-smelling.  If you can’t summon it to our mind, you should sprint out into the dusk and run through temperate Europe and North America until you smell their heady perfume.

The lilac (Syringa vulgaris) is a species of flowering plant from the the olive family.  The common lilac is a small tree native to the Balkan Peninsula, where it grows naturally upon rocky hills.  Lilac trees are small and measure at most 6–7 meters (20–23 ft) in height.  They can reproduce from an olive-like brown capsule which splits open into two helicopter seeds or by suckering (over time, lilacs form small clonal colonies).

Greece is the cradle of Western Civilization, yet there are no myths that I can think of about lilacs.  Medieval letters are likewise silent about lilacs and the fragrant flowers aren’t even mentioned at all by Shakespeare.  Lilacs came late to the garden, which, combined with their average looks, is perhaps why we rhapsodize about them less than we should (it is worth noting that there is a beautiful sort of Korean lilac, which, when blooming, looks like a purple dream, but it is not renowned for its scent–it seems that only the rose is capable of having it all).

Korean Dwarf Lilac

The garden lilacs we have seem to descend from Ottoman specimens. Apparently Turkish gardeners managed to ferret out treasures which the ancients missed.  These were hybridized and domesticated during the 14th and 15th centuries and cuttings reached the most fashionable and innovative gardens of Western Europe in the late 16th century through the Holy Roman Empire (so Shakespeare could have smelled lilacs, if only he had known the most botanically-connected and florally-innovative aristocrats).

Whatever their provenance, lilacs smell wonderful, and I feel like they should be more fashionable (indeed they have been at the center of garden fame at various points in 18th and 19th centuries).  For the sake of Ferrebeekeeper themes it is worth noting that “lilac” is also the name of a muted shade of pale purple.  To wrap up the post here is a lilac ottoman.  Since I could never find images of the great Ottoman lilac gardens of medieval Istanbul, this purple padded stool will have to do.