The lure of lilac
It looks – and smells – so good that our expert will go to surprising lengths to enjoy it
IFIND it hard to walk along my street in late spring without stopping every few minutes to admire a venerable lilac gracing somebody’s front garden. There are half a dozen of them within a short distance of each other whose branches are laden with long flower clusters that pack a powerful musky scent.
As it’s so strong, the perfume is carried a fair distance from its source, but nothing beats getting up close. It’s time to come clean; I wait until no one is looking, then lean over a garden wall, take the closest branch and draw it towards my nose so I can fully appreciate the heavenly smell of its blooms.
These shrubs aren’t just popular where I live, they’re a common sight in villages, towns and cities across the country. Apart from turning heads, and noses, early in the season, they can be planted now in beds, borders, lawns or containers to ensure a cracking display next year.
Native to woodland and scrub, from south-eastern Europe to eastern Asia, this massive tribe of deciduous trees and shrubs produce flowers in shades of white, yellow, pink, near red, lilac (naturally), blue and purple against a foil of heart-shaped leaves. Most are at their best for just two to three weeks, but grow a few different ones and you can enjoy flowers from mid-April to early July.
There is great diversity among the size of plants, so it pays to pick carefully to make certain that a variety suits your plot. Those under 6ft are ideal in pots or small gardens, while anything above 20ft, with a spread to match, needs a much larger space. Those in between are fine in an average-sized garden.
Lilac was first recorded as a common plant name in 1605 and is thought to derive from an obsolete French word that roughly translates as bluish, after the typical colour of its flowers at that time. About 150 years later, the word entered dictionaries to describe a pale pinkish-violet colour.
Although gardeners usually refer to them by their common name, nurserymen often sell these plants as syringa, their botanical name. This derives from the Greek word syrinx, meaning hollow tube – in ancient Greece, pith was removed from the stems of the plant to make flutes and other instruments.
They’ve been grown in British gardens since the 16th Century, yet were largely ignored for more than 300 years. Everything changed in 1878, when French nurseryman Victor Lemoine unveiled Syringa x hyacinthiflora ‘Hyacinthiflora Plena’, a hybrid with upright plumes of violet double flowers.
It was the first in a string of highly desirable varieties introduced by his nursery that were snapped up by Victorian gardeners. By the turn of the century, lilacs were so popular that no garden was considered complete unless it contained one or two. After Lemoine died in 1911, the nursery continued his work and is estimated to have launched more than 200 different varieties by the time it closed in 1945. Among its classics are double-white Syringa vulgaris ‘Madame Lemoine’ and pink S. vulgaris ‘Belle de Nancy’. From 1896, S. vulgaris ‘Charles Joly’ is a striking plant with double, dark purple flowers that appear between May and June.
Today, there are close to 450 different varieties of lilac available in Britain. For impact in a small garden try S. meyeri ‘Palibin’, a slow-growing shrub with upright spikes of lilac- pink flowers, or S. pubescens subsp. patula ‘Miss Kim’ – growing to around 6ft, it boasts highly fragrant, pale purple flowers in May that fade to white by early summer.
Syringa ‘Bloomerang’ is a unique new variety from the US. Rather than produce a single flush of flowers, its heavily scented, bluish purple blooms make their debut in late spring, take a short rest, then appear again from mid-summer until the first frosts of autumn. Growing to 5ft, it has a bushy, rounded shape.
PERSIAN lilacs are perfect in a slightly bigger garden and are renowned for the intensity of their fragrance. Syringa x persica is a graceful plant with lilac flowers, and closely related S x persica ‘Alba’ has pure white blooms. Both can reach 8ft. Others to consider are pure white S. vulgaris ‘ Edith Cavell’ or S. ‘Andenken an Ludwig Spath’, a 12ft beauty with reddish purple flowers.
Some lilacs make fine garden trees. S. vulgaris ‘Primrose’ has clusters of pale yellow flowers, while those of S. vulgaris ‘Sensation’ are bi-coloured – the purplish red florets are edged with white. Launched by Lemoine’s nursery in 1922, S. vulgaris ‘Katherine Havemeyer’ bears double, lavender-blue flowers that open from purple buds. All three can grow to 20ft.
Lilacs like a sunny spot, and will flourish in well-drained, neutral soil. But they are so easy going that they’ll tolerate chalky or even slightly acidic conditions. The only thing they hate is heavy, soggy ground.
Avoid deadheading too soon after flowering or you could jeopardise next year’s display. Wait until you can clearly see two shoots swell beneath the fading flowerhead, then snip just above them. Mature plants need one or two old stems cutting in winter to maintain an attractive shape.