Do you have large bushes? Do lilacs even grow that large? Am I remembering something with a child's exaggerated memory?
Most of ours are about 8 - 10 feet tall, but they will be much bigger some day. Almost all of them started out as 3 foot high bushes growing out from huge "lilac colonies" around the ruins of old stone farm buildings. The mature bushes around those building are often about 12-15 feet high and are a mass of fragrant blooms in late May and early June.
I also have a white lilac bush here that was given to me by a friend last year. It has about 10 clusters of blooms on it this year. It will eventually be quite large some day if it takes after its parents which are in my friend's yard. So, no, I don't think there is anything exaggerated about your memories of huge lilac bushes. Maybe I will try to shoot some photos of lilacs around some old stone houses up here and show them to you. They might revive your memories a little even if you can't enjoy the scent. BTW, I like to cut a few branches of flowers and put them in vases around the place so that we can enjoy them indoors as well as out.
One nice thing about so many of the plants here at the farm is that they have memories attached to them. I have irises that a friend brought with her to her new house after leaving an old stone house that she and her husband restored about 30 years ago. She gave me a couple of rhizomes about 12 years ago, and now I have many, and have split them and passed some along to others. They have the scent of licorice and are the colour of the VanGogh irises.. and are probably a very old variety as they were in the remains of the old gardens at the stone house..which pre-dated 1850. I have a white peony, Festiva Maxima, that was part of one from my grandmother's garden, as well as an old variety of striped Moss rose (soft pink and white), that came from her garden as well. And large arcing Solomon's Seal, little white and red Trilliums, and Cinnamon Ferns from another friend's woodland garden. There are more, but it's just nice to walk around through the gardens knowing that this plant or that one came here from someone else's garden.
Well, I've had my rest after cutting a bit of lawn, so time to get back out there and enjoy the sun. |
