Lilacs Have Uncanny Ability to Unlock Many Long-Lost Memories of Childhood

Summary

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One whiff of a lilac: Often that's all it takes to transport the unwary back to childhood, to Grandmother's garden, walks along a country road or a park where friends would meet in spring and celebrate the world reborn. This uncanny ability to evoke moments long locked away is what earned the common lilac, also known as Syringa vulgaris, and 19 related species their poetic moniker: the flower of memory.

Little wonder that European emigrants en route to a new life in North America took their lilacs with them. Bundled in moistened burlap and cradled in straw, the first treasured cuttings made their way to the colonies in the 1600s. Today descendants of these early lilacs remain intact, even though the farmhouses they once adorned may have vanished long ago.

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Lilacs Have Uncanny Ability to Unlock Many Long-Lost Memories of Childhood

Even now, cold-hardy lilacs, which can survive in Zones 3 through 7, number among the first shrubs gardeners plant when they move to a new house. But with hun...

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