It's A Lilac Year

It is definitely a lilac year. The bushes are filled -- absolutely filled -- with blooms and the fragrance as you enter or leave by the back door is heady! For there are 3 bushes that line the drive and they are a mass of lilac.

They're the "children" of some forgotten bushes at an abandoned house in Nevada, Missouri, and after we moved to Linderhof, I would pick the blossoms off of the bushes and one day I got brave and dug up three starts. (Yes, I know I was trespassing -- but no one appreciated the bushes and I certainly did).

Two of the bushes I planted between our driveways and the other by the back window of the dining room. They grew and flourished. And they bloomed -- but never as profusely as in 2010 -- A Lilac Year.

The third bush that lines the drive is a descendant of the lilac bush that was under the bedroom window in the apartment that my parents lived in when I was born. A start was taken from that bush when my parents moved into a house across the street and when they moved to suburbia six years later, a start of that bush went with them.

I got a start of the suburbia descendant the year my mother died. The following year, this wee bush bloomed -- one bloom. I think it was a message from my mother. For it didn't bloom again until it was of blooming size.

It's a big bush now and this year, it's loaded with the old fashioned lilac lilacs!
No fancy cultivars for me -- the old fashioned farm lilacs are perfect for Linderhof's old fashioned garden. And what to do with an abundance of lilac blooms.
Cut them and bring them in . . . . so that the breakfast room and living room smell like lilacs as well as the outside! They make a spectacular bouquet in the blue and white Spode milk pitcher.
And I think you can almost smell the lilacs . . . can't you?

It's Wednesday and it's Outdoor Wednesday so please join Susan at A Southern Daydreamer to see what else is blooming outdoors this Spring Wednesday.