Swaths of fierce lilacs,
Opened astonishing furnaces of scent,
(The spirit has a lilac smell)
Lilacs, wind-beaten, staggering under a lopsided shock of bloom,
Every leaf a miracle.*
Oh, you get it, Galway Kinnell, Amy Lowell, Walt Whitman, and Carlos Santana, you too who were/are drawn to the sweet siren song of the lilacs, that fleetingly divine spring symphony that lures us in and, laughing, leaves us behind all too soon.
But not this year. I’ve got a plan to game the all-too-short lilac season: I am going to chase the lovely Syringa as she blooms her way up the east coast. Two weeks of heavenly scents simply isn’t enough.
This brilliant idea didn’t occur to me until a couple of weeks ago, so I’ve missed all of the mid-Atlantic, lower New York, and Connecticut flowers. But there’s New Hampshire and upstate New York, where lilacs bloom through the end of May! Maine, where you can see and smell them through early June! And, hey, I’ve always wanted to visit Nova Scotia! I wonder if lilacs grow in Newfoundland (why, yes, they do).
I am fortunate to be surrounded by lilacs here in eastern Massachusetts. My yard houses six lilac bushes. Three of them already have spent their seasonal bounty. My two late-bloomers are proudly strutting their luscious lavender stuff. And one is just a baby, for whom I have high hopes of copious blooms next spring.
To supplement my lilac mania locally, I’ve done everything from hanging out—in a non-creepy way, of course—at a local nursery that houses rows of lilacs in its greenhouse to visiting the Arnold Arboretum frequently during lilac bloom time, excluding Lilac Sunday. Said Mother’s Day festival is a wonderful event if you have young children and/or dogs that you think of as children and/or if your Mom would enjoy being immersed in large quantities of young children and entitled dogs. If you answered “no” to any of the above, I suggest avoiding it.
My friend, Christine, and I visited the Arnold Arboretum a few days before Lilac Sunday. We enjoyed a practically-perfect-in-every-way, middle-aged-moms spring day out: rambling the arboretum, stopping to sniff the lilacs we encountered, and commenting on each one’s name and smell (“Madame Lemoine, you look très jolie but your scent is not to my liking”); eating lunch at a locally owned cafe that has one of those names like “Organic Sweet Juice” or “Pink Broccoli,” and browsing books at the always fabulously well-stocked Papercuts Bookshop. The scent of lilacs lingered in my olfactory system for hours, I experienced a violent outburst of sneezing, and I spent way too much on hardcover books. Still, that day was a solid 10.
I have high hopes that my first venture north in pursuit of lilacs—to the McLaughlin Garden and Homestead in South Paris, Maine, located just off the road on the way to my son’s high school graduation this weekend—will be similarly divine. Since I will be accompanied by my mother, father, and mother-in-law, I’m sure it will be. ; )
Other ways to explore lilacs:
Make lilac syrup, a delightful and artistic addition to prosecco or lemonade (and, if you follow that lilac syrup link, you’ll also find a delicious and scalable recipe for lilac gin fizz cocktails). Although lilac syrup resembles slightly polluted brown water, I assure you that it mixes into a lovely shade of pale lavender and adds a hint of spring to whatever you’re drinking. : )
Read the book Lilac Girls by Martha Hall Kelly. I waited until seven years after this book was published to read it because I am skeptical of breathlessly hyped best-sellers—but this one deserves its hype. Lilac Girls is based in part on the life of Caroline Ferriday, a New York socialite who worked at the French consulate before and during WWII. After the war, she aided survivors who lived through hideous medical experiments at the all-women Nazi concentration camp Ravensbrück. I plan to visit Ferriday’s Connecticut house, which is known for its lilacs, but I’ve already missed out on this bloom season. : (
Visit a lilac farm. A few years ago, my friend, Lisa, and I went to a lilac farm in north-central Massachusetts. Between the Deliverance vibe and a snake sighting (thankfully, Lisa, not I, saw the snake), I won’t be going back, although I did pick up two lovely lilac bushes for my front yard. And I’ve seen pictures of other lilac farms and nurseries that appear to be far less terrifying. :o
*I did not write this poem! I merely assembled great poets’ descriptions of lilacs that made me say “YES! This!”