I love Lilacs. I grew up with them. My yard had several large bushes. Each Spring when the buds arrived, I found myself sniffing and counting them. The thrill of knowing how many blooms there would be and the scent when they opened was a magical time for me.
My mother would cut the delicious purples and I would put them in old milk cartons that I'd hold on the car ride. The aroma would take over and by the time we'd get there, petals would be all over me and the floor.
We had come to visit Grandma. I was in kindergarten when she past away but I still remember my little white haired French Grandmother. No, I'm not French but she was. She'd come from France and moved to Canada. When she moved here, she had Lilacs in her garden. My Mom brought some to her yard. When I was older, I brought some to mine.
We would take fresh lilacs to her grave every year. I even did it for a while after my Mother past away. I've now moved and the annual Lilac adventure is just memory.
The lilac bush that I brought to my house grew. I'd lived there for nine years and had transplanted several new starts. When I had to leave for this house, I dug up several bushes & brought them along. Unfortunately, they do not like my woods. Each year I look out my kitchen window & there among the over hanging tree branches are my lilacs. I'm lucky if I get 5 blooms. I tried to talk my husband into transplanting them but he said it would be a disaster due to the roots being tangled into the trees.
When we purchased our beach place, I was looking out my kitchen window. My husband asked me what I was doing. I told him I was looking for the place where I would plant my new lilacs. A few weeks later, I found a nursery and came home with two big containers. The same color that I'd been used to as a child. I would look out the window and there they were, almost ready to bloom. I can't tell you how happy it made me.
And then it happened.
The deer in my area can't read. If you look up what deer eat, lilacs are listed on the safe list. We even have a fence for my dogs which would make it difficult if not impossible for the deer to venture into my back yard. That's where the 'My Deer Don't Read' comes in. Not only did they get over my fence, they ate all the leaves off my lilacs. There are only branches left. Sad but true. My heart was broken.
I am in the process of figuring out how to revive my expensive lilacs. I bought the mature kind not the babies that come in bags. My lilacs were in huge containers with my husband moaning all the way to the car. As I look out at my sticks, I wonder, what would Grandma do? Go out and buy some new ones is what I think. I'd love to wait and see if my sticks ever produce leaves and give me my fragrant blooms but I've waited a long time already for my old lilacs. I feel like I'm running out of time here and I'd really like to have some this Spring or next.
It's been several weeks since I started to write my Lilac story. I put it aside and wrote about my dogs and cats. Over the weekend, we went to our beach place. I was walking around the yard with my dogs checking out the weed situation. There was a gardening miracle. My Lilacs have come back to me. Little leaves have grown with several buds.
I was thrilled. Jumping up and down thrilled. Screaming out loud thrilled. My husband was not. That meant he had to find something to put around the Lilacs to protect them from the dreaded deer. He thought he had some wire around the yard. You have to remember that we don't live at the beach. It's a new place to us and we've only brought a few things to it so far. He was thinking big dollars signs and a visit to our local gardening store. Luckily, he found some wire hidden under the porch.
I being the handy dandy gardening lady helped him while he hammered in those nifty u turn nails. I now have wire in half circles around my two fragile lilacs. It's a beautiful site.
I'm a happy Lilac Lady. There is hope. There might be blooms when I go back. The lilac story will continue. I'll let you know if the deer got into their wire home. The ever not ending story of my Lilacs. It's in my title and I told you I like them.
That's why I love lilacs and the smell. It brings back my younger days when I had a Grandma and a Mom and lilacs weren't eaten up by deer. Mine are kind of cute deer so I can't get too mad at them but that's a different story.
