My First Five Lilacs

May 1997 was the beginning of my lilac collection. For our anniversary, my husband and I were given 5 lilacs by our good friends Bonnie and Curtis. When trying to decide where these should be planted, the idea of a "lilac walk" came to mind. A bed approximately 80 feet long was prepared and the following lilacs were planted: 'Sensation', 'Grande Flora Alba', 'President Grevy', 'Belle de Nancy', and 'Miss Canada'.

All were bare rooted shrubs about 2-3 feet in height. Hindsight makes me ask why, oh why did I not mulch this bed at the time of planting? 15 years makes a lot of difference in the energy I have for garden maintenance. The bed was filled in with perennials including peonies and a waft of spring flowering bulbs. It grew and so did the weeds. What had started out as a wonderful display has now grown into a jungle, almost impossible to weed. But the lilacs are still beautiful and bloom every year. So I will start out with these five dependable beauties.

A new lilac every week

Now that I am kind of catching on to blogging (still a long way to go) I am proposing to post a picture of one of the lilacs in our collections every week. At the end of the year there should be pictures of at least 50 different lilacs that are growing in our gardens here in the Robson Valley.
In order to catch up I will be adding several lilacs in the next couple of weeks.

We are having unseasonably warm weather here in the Robson Valley. It has been raining for the past three days and the soft fluffy blanket of snow protecting our precious lilacs is slowly disappearing. It will turn to a hard icy prison once the weather returns to its normal temperatures. The last few winters have had a few such worrisome weeks. We always wonder if our lilacs will suffer or indeed survive, but so far we have managed to keep them alive.

After visiting other lilac gardens and seeing what a difference a bit of fertilizer makes, this coming year we plan to do a bit of fertilizing as well as feeding them with bone meal.
We were able to salvage quite a bit of bonemeal from a highway spill about a year ago. Last summer Mamma bear and twins made short work of it, so we are left with going to the garden centre again.

2010 will be the tenth year we will be holding our annual lilac walk. It's hard to believe time has gone by so fast. We're planning something special for it, so check back later this spring.