Plant Talk

The Luxury of Lilacs - How To Coax Them Into Full Bloom Indoors

It's lilac time, and while these blooms weren't quite ready to cut, I couldn't resist going out in the rain this morning and clipping a few boughs. Can you think of a greater luxury than fresh-from-the garden lilacs, dripping with rain, just opening up and unfurling their scent around the house?

While most varieties aren't quite open yet (here in Langley, anyway), you can encourage their flowers along in the warmth of the house. Split the stems up a few inches, with a knife or sharp clippers,  and slightly flare the bottom of the wood, so the branches will soak up water. Then plunge them into a big vase of warm water.....you can almost watch the blossoms open. My plan is that they'll perfume the house, and the yoga studio, for at least a week, but of course the lilacs have their own plan....

There's nothing beautiful about lilac bushes themselves. But we put up with their ungainly shape, and nondescript leaves, whose only virtue is to show off the flowers when they appear, all year round, just for  these two to three springtime weeks when they flower so exquisitely....a hedge of lilacs in different colors is a wonderous thing during late April and first weeks of May...

White flowers aren't usually high on my list - except for white lilacs which are perfection....and so fragrant...

Fresh Ingredients Make the Bouquet - Peony Leaves, Euphorbia, Lilacs and Tulips

On a recent rainy morning, motivated by having more work due than I cared to contemplate, I gathered the raw ingredients for several bouquets. The plan was to compose one big bouquet for the opening night of Museo Gallery's fabulous Metal Invitational show, and several small, fragrant arrangements for the house and yoga studio.

Luckily, I had armloads of lilacs, thanks to a neighbor who let me cut from her blossom-heavy shrub along the sidewalk. I bought the parrot tulips, and picked the euphorbia and the last narcissus out of the garden. The dark, dissected peony foliage is from a branch that fortuitously broke off in the rain.

As with any creative endeavor, there's waste involved in bouquet-making - it's always hard to know what you'll really need until you get into any project. As with cooking, you start by assembling an abundance of fresh ingredients to choose from; with flowers this includes an assortment of vases and a pair of sharp clippers...

With this many possibilities to mess around with, I was able to procrastinate on my writing for a pleasant hour or two....It was a challenge to create a bouquet for an art show featuring metal pieces (it's a fabulous show that includes tansu, neon and cool garden cages; use it as an excuse to visit Langley this month).

I figured anything too frilly, light, ephemeral, or fluffy would get lost amidst all the heavy metal...so I chose a big, heavy vase and loaded it up...with the dark peony foliage (from 'Kopper Kettle') around the bottom to play up the tulips and tie all the various colors to the vase.

There were enough raw ingredients left over, a few lilacs and tulips, and all the narcissus (which looked too pale and ephemeral to suit the the beefier bouquet) for a trio of bouquets to scent the house and the yoga studio.

 

Lilac Time - Finally

Spring has finally arrived when the lilacs bloom, and the town of Langley, blessed with a bounty of lilac bushes, is sweetly scented with these old-fashioned flowers. When the sun warmed up late in the week, lilac perfume wafted in through the open windows, and for the first time I believed in my bones that the long winter is past and summer really is on its way...Lilacs are visceral proof of springtime.

Lilacs are ungainly shrubs, often planted in a back corner of the garden where it's hard to enjoy their bloom, let alone their rich perfume.  Why not cut armloads and bring indoors for a big dose of lilac luxury?

It's not that lilacs don't mix well with other flowers, but they're so beautiful all by themselves I rarely arrange them with anything else. Lilacs last such a brief time that I always want vases full of just lilacs in every room...

A sleek, silvery container shows off lilac's voluptousness and various colors...I love the play of such traditional flowers in a modern sliver of metal vase.

Even a few lilacs in an orange glass vase are so evocative; here on the windowsill of the guestroom.

This fat-bottomed, mottled metal vase with a narrow neck balances out the shape of the lilacs while holding the heavy branches securly in this casual bunch of dark purple blossoms.

This cylindrical vase is plain and pale enough to showcase the darkest lilacs...these are 'My Favorite', bred by Hulda Klager of Hulda Klager Lilac Gardens in Woodland, Washington - a perfect destination when the lilacs are in bloom...

 

Lilacs, birds, dogs and springtime

Right now is the moment lilac lovers wait for all year. For a brief few days (a bit extended this year because the weather remains so chilly) all the colors of lilacs are in bloom at once. As the white lilacs come on, the dark purples are opening and the paler purple ones are beginning to fade. It's the time to pick bouquets with all three major colors - what a delight. Nurseries are full of miniature lilacs ('Miss Kim') and novelty lilacs that bloom in summer, like the new Syringa x prestoniae 'Redwine', but my heart belongs to the big old-fashioned lilacs blooming around town.

I probably moved to Langley because it has more lilacs than any town I've ever seen.  You can walk anywhere around town this time of year and inhale the near-overpoweringly sweet scent of lilacs. Or you could if it ever warmed up a bit - the sun brings out lilac perfume.

Speaking of, the sun finally broke through the clouds Thursday afternoon, and here's my puppy Bridget sniffing the wind and enjoying the breeze blowing through her whiskers. There's nothing like a dog or cat to remind us how delicious spring can be if we pause long enough to enjoy it.

Would you say I'm crazy if I suggested that my new bird art, a glass piece by Whidbey artist Meredith MacLeod, purchased at Museo Gallery in Langley, is drawing more birds to my garden this year? Maybe they come to admire themselves in the piece's luminous reflectivity, or perhaps they take it as a sign of a bird-friendly garden....I saw my first goldfinch of the season last week, and now the garden is filled with hummers, goldfinches, sparrows and robins, all busily going about the business of singing, sipping, fluffing, and nest building. Meredith made the piece to go outdoors - that cool frame is solid cedar, and it's hung on the outside of the house.....

Lilacs

Even though this year, with icy mornings and 20-some degree overnight temps, March may seem like the cruelest month, T.S. Eliot bestowed that honor upon April ... We spring worshipers are chastened, or maybe forewarned, by his oft-quoted line  “April is the cruelest month”.  What we forget is that it's followed by an evocation of lilacs;  “Breeding lilacs out of the dead land, mixing memory and desire, stirring dull roots with spring rain.”

Easter and lilacs are intertwined in my mind, although most years lilacs bloom weeks later. With the array of newer hybrids it is possible to have lilacs in bloom for many fragrant weeks, bracketing the Easter holiday in cones of sweet, old-fashioned flowers. And this spring, Monrovia Nursery is introducing a new summer-blooming lilac - seems a little weird, actually, but tantalizing, too...

Redwine lilac (Syringa x prestoniae 'Redwine beautiful') has a spicy fragrance, and magenta flowers that don't bloom until late spring into summer.  Like most lilacs, it is beloved by butterflies, and lasts well and looks beautiful cut for arrangements. But the main reason to grow this new version of an old favorite is for its heat tolerance.  For the first time it might be possible to have lilacs in bloom along with lilies and roses - wouldn't that be a smorgasbord of scent?