It's lilac season!
Monday reading #47
Monday Reading is my weekly recommendation of something I’ve found thought-provoking or fascinating. Sometimes it is about something I have read. Sometimes it is about television or food or music or projects I care about supporting. Sometimes I do not send it on Monday. Please share with anyone who might like the vibes!
Have you sniffed any lilacs yet? It’s lilac season and time is running out! I went to Lilacia Park in Lombard, which is a city park specializing in lilacs and tulips. It was originally the private garden of a man named—and I cannot stress this enough—Colonel William Plum and his wife Helen Williams Plum, who brought home two lilac varieties when they visited the gardens of French horticulturist and lilac breeder Victor Lemoine. There are hundreds of lilac varieties. I heard a lady coo “Hello, Beautiful!” to a lilac bush as she leaned in to smell it. The vibe was tight.
I wrote down some of the lilac names, and here they are with some photos. (I did not write down which photos were of which varieties. Maybe next year??)
Asesippi * White Lace * Paul Thirion * Ballbridget * The Bride * Belle de Nancy Andenken an Ludwig Spath * Palibin * Saugeana * President Grevy * James McFarlane
Summer Snow * Marlyensis * Agin Beauty * Adelaide Dunbar * Gladiator * Mount Baker * Tiny Dancer(TM) *Excel * Minuet * Dappled Down
Michel Buchner * Mme. Casimir Perier * Burgundy Queen * Atheline Wilbur * Oliver de Serres * Biala Anna * President Lincoln * Monge * Hedin
Miss Kim * Bloomerang(TM) * Jewel * Bridal Memories * Miss Ellen Willmott Krasavitsa Moskvy (Beauty of Moskow) * Alvan R. Grant * Montainge * Yankee Doodle
See you soon!
When I was a small child, I was given a "lilac" scented Avon cologne stick which came with instructions to rub it on the inside of my wrists because that is how ladies wear their perfume. I had never met an actual lilac until much later. But the scent of them fills me with the joy of an 8 year old. I'm glad you had some sniffing time with them.
I planted a lilac tree in my yard two springs ago and we call it Kim Tree because it is a Korean Lilac and literally everywhere including down my street lilacs are blooming but not Kim Tree. (She's getting there just not fully bloomed yet)