The Heirloom Orchardist’s Lilacs

Each spring, travelers on a main roadway in my town are greeted with a pleasant surprise as they cross over a busy Interstate Highway.  Growing in the state-owned land is a healthy colony of white lilacs.  Right now, in May, these unattended shrubs are blooming gloriously.  Why would this familiar landscape plant be growing within the cloverleaf interior of a major highway?  Is this a subtle bit of pleasantry given by an aesthetically minded highway engineer?  Nope...not likely.

Lilac - Beauty of Moscow

Lilacs have a long history in New England’s domestic landscape. This provides insight toward the origin of these lilacs.  In turn, we receive a strong reminder that the landscape of my town is constantly changing, as is the landscape of most New England communities.

Native to the Southeast region of Europe, the Common Lilac (Syringa vulgaris) has been in human cultivation since the 1500's.  We can only suspect it to have been introduced to the New World during the colonial period, but we have conclusive evidence (Jefferson's copious notes) that lilacs were growing in the gardens of Monticello during the late 1700’s.  Today, there are few of us without a childhood memory of the family’s legendary fragrant lilac.

Lilac - Ludwig Spaeth

Lilacs are hardy plants.  They are not considered invasive, but they are tenacious.  Lilacs will often survive when those who planted them are long gone.  Since its introduction in the New World, the lilac has always been a domestic plant, never delegated to the field, always cultivated for pleasure in The Heirloom Orchardists’ house gardens throughout old New England.  As a result, when we find lilacs growing in "vacant land" (a term the Heirloom Orchardist would never understand) there are likely the remains of an old home site nearby.

So this spring, I went to visit these highway lilacs on foot.  I left my car in the parking lot of a mostly vacant strip retail building, then walked across four busy lanes of traffic into the state highway property.  There, I found our lilacs growing at the top of a ledge outcrop.  It is a large colony of plants, with multiple stems.  But most of these plants do not appear old.  In some of today's delegated “historic districts” we can be sure to find lilacs that are known to be over one hundred years old, with trunks having four to five inches of width.  Amongst these highway lilacs, I can find only one plant with a trunk exceeding three inches.

Lilac - Asessippi

 Lilacs have a tendency to "sucker".  That is, they annually sprout new twiggy growth from their base.  Those of us who are familiar with their care try to take advantage of this characteristic by annually pruning out the old woody stems, and allowing the young suckers to mature.  This ensures a crop of new growth each year, and keeps the height of the blossoms at a desirable low level.  (It also helps us to avoid having a lilac with a "leggy" habit.)  With successive generations of suckers, the unattended plant will colonize an area, and spread.  As the “parent plant” grows old, the expanding cluster of young lilacs will seek out, and move toward less crowded locations.  This is exactly what these highway lilacs have done.

Due to its larger stem size, it is easy to identify the parent plant within this cluster of lilacs.  But there are other obvious indicators of age: broken branches, a trunk scar, and a dramatic lean to one side.  This matriarch lilac has led a difficult life.  Adjacent to its large weathered trunk, I found what I’d come looking for: the remnants of a stone masonry wall; strong evidence that this lilac once graced the grounds of an Heirloom Orchardist’s home.

Lilac - Mme Lemoine

So, we are given a bittersweet vision.  This lilac once belonged to someone.  This lilac was once planted, nurtured and appreciated.  This lilac once gave blossoms, and brightened an heirloom orchardist's Sunday morning breakfast table.  Today, while the landscape of my town changes around it, this tired lilac endures, and her offspring flourish.

Change is inevitable, and when properly managed, change is often for the good.  But when we manage the historic landscape of any town, it is important to be reminded that history is not limited to particular structures or districts.  History is everywhere.  It's even in the Lilacs that we plant.  We only need to look