THE LILAC ZONE

 'Martha Stewart'. Perhaps I would be lucky and still have the real deal. Alas, the nursery was consistent in what I believe was an unintentional mistake in my order, and both starters have shown to be incorrect. Thankfully the nursery has made good on the error and the real 'Martha Stewart' is now living with us. At least I hope so. The truth will be known once the new shrub blooms some time in the future. Let the waiting game begin anew... 

around the edges, giving it a two-toned effect and one that is quite remarkable. I found myself visiting this lilac often as I really was quite surprised as to the beauty of it. I haven't seen another lilac quite like it!

Though the flowers may appear white, the buds have a light pink hue and the flowers are pinkish when they first open. Producing florets larger than typical florets of the old-fashioned variety, I can't imagine what this shrub will look like when it is fully grown. This was definitely one of my favorites this year. 

supplier, not them.

​

What makes it challenging sometimes when trying to obtain the correct cultivar is that even between different official lilac collections, you may find  the "same" cultivar having different flowers, indicating that one of them is mislabeled and leading one to wonder which is the real McCoy. With many of the propagators no longer living, it makes it more of a challenge to determine which lilac is truly the true-to-name variety. Tracing the origins of the sources of the shrubs could help determine where the confusion occurred, but even then, it might not be possible to determine which is the accurate cultivar.  It could possibly be that at some point an error has been made when cultivating 'Yankee Doodle', as the variety that I have does in fact match a photo taken of 'Yankee Doodle' in a well-known lilac collection. It does not, however, match the photos provided by a nursery that obtained their original 'Yankee Doodle' plant from Father Fiala's Falconskeape Gardens. ​​If I had a photo of this cultivar, I would share it with you. Unfortunately, this is another lilac that I have only seen the bloom in pictures.

The cool news is that this nursery just sent me two starters of their 'Yankee Doodle'. It will likely take a while before it flowers, but regardless I admit to doing the "Snoopy dance" upon their arrival. (Though likely amusing to watch, I am not one of those people that has posted the event on You Tube so save yourself the trouble of trying to find it.) I do really want to say just how fortunate I feel to be the recipient of such a kind and generous act. Random acts of kindness really make an impression!

suggested to plant the starters together. Though planted together, only one of the starters bloomed last year and revealed itself to be an imposter. I was hoping that this year, the other starter would bloom and reveal itself to actually be 

'Donald Wyman'

This lilac belongs to the Syringa Villosae Group and is a nice purple. It is a late bloomer, so it actually surprised us by blooming this year when earlier in the spring it appeared that we were going to have to wait another year before seeing any flowers.

'Pat Pesata'

Yet another of Father Fiala's lilacs, this one was really a surprise as the description that I had read of it really does not do this lilac justice. Though the petals are described as large and a pale light blue, what wasn't mentioned is that each petal has a ring of pink/magenta 

'Prof. Robert B. Clark'

Holy Toledo this is one cool white lilac! Another one of Father Fiala's cultivars, this lilac is what they describe as multi-petaled, often producing more than the typical 4 petals on each flower. (Check out the floret just a little below center with 10 petals in the picture.) 

NOT 'Yankee Doodle'

Another disappointment, I have waited a couple of years now to see this "Father Fiala" cultivar finally bloom. It is supposed to be his darkest lilac, with large florets and sometimes white near the eye of the flower. When mine bloomed, I was surprised to see that it didn't look like any of the images that can be seen on the Internet . Considering the nursery from which I got it is very conscientious about selling only true-to-name varieties, that compounded the surprise even more. I blame their ​

NOT 'Martha Stewart' - Take 2

When I purchased this, the nursery actually sent me 2 "starters". "Starters" are the term that I am now convinced is code for small lilacs that upon first appearance fool you into thinking that someday they couldn't possibly turn into 5' wide x 10' high shrubs. The nursery 

This year was a tough one for seeing lilacs bloom for the first time. All of the crushing snow from this past winter really took its toll on any lilacs smaller than 5' in height. Where we probably would have seen more bloom this year, quite a few lost the branches most likely to bear flowers. Some were even broken to within a foot of the ground. Nevertheless, once again they all proved how hardy lilacs can be and all but one (previously mentioned and boulder-crushed) survived!

Despite the "Snowmageddon" of 2015, we still had 5 lilacs that produced flowers for the first time...