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Lilacs in New England
Lilacs are my favorite flower. My birthday is in early June. From the time I knew birthdays were special I thought that the fragrance which filled my room from the lilac bushes outside my bedroom window was a special birthday gift.
Unfortunately, lilacs bloom for only a few weeks. This year, the third week in May the lilacs on my property in Lyme are just beginning to bud. Unless we have particularly warm weather, they are on schedule to fill my bedroom with their beautiful, sweet fragrance on my birthday. After the blooms have faded, the soft, green, heart-shaped leaves will remain for the summer season.
In 1919, the purple lilac was selected as New Hampshire's state flower because the legislators felt it was "symbolic of that hardy character of the men and women of the Granite State." (New Hampshire Revised Statute Annotated [RSA] 3:5.) The men in New Hampshire government may have selected the lilac for its hardy character, but I like lilacs because its flowers are beautiful and the fragrance is better than that of any flower I have ever smelled.
Lilacs are not native to North America. The first lilac bushes to be rooted in America were shipped around 1750 from England to Portsmouth, New Hampshire. In Portsmouth, they were planted at the home of Governor Benning Wentworth.
Shortly after Governor Wentworth planted his lilac bushes, lilacs became popular throughout the colonies. In 1767, Thomas Jefferson recorded his method of planting lilacs in his garden book. In 1785, George Washington noted that he had transplanted lilacs to his garden. Walter Whitman wrote a poem about lilacs: "When Lilacs Last in the Dooryard Bloom'd."
Lilacs are particularly well suited for the New England climate because they need a period of cold-initiated dormancy to trigger their flowering mechanism. Almost every old New England farm had some lilac bushes, and most of the older homes and public buildings in Lyme, and nearby towns, have a lilac bush or two on the property. Most think lilacs are purple, but there are white lilacs, pink lilacs, and some that are almost blue. Lilac bushes can range from a few feet high to almost 15 feet in height. Although the trunk of a lilac bush never gets to be more than a few inches in diameter, the hard, brittle wood is prized by some local woodcarvers for its density and multicolored, irregular rings.
Not only are lilacs hardy, they are long lived. Many lilac bushes are more than a hundred years old. It's possible that some of the first lilac bushes planted in America may bloom again this spring in Portsmouth, and at Monticello there are lilacs that were planted by Thomas Jefferson.
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If you like lilacs, the last two weeks in May and the first week in June are the time to drive the back roads of the upper part of the Upper Valley with your car windows rolled down.
