The lilacs around our old farmhouse have faded away for another year. For the past several weeks, they hung heavy with blossoms whose sweet aroma perfumed late spring days. A momentary burst of purple in a rapidly greening season, our lilacs are an inheritance from the Veitch family who moved onto the land in 1856.
I remember that first spring so many years ago. City-raised, I was a first time rural dweller. It had been a long winter with ice still floating in the bay as late as May. I hadn't paid much attention to the shrubs that surrounded an old stone foundation. An overgrown tangle, their suckers had invaded the old stones, cracking what mortar remained.
And then one morning in May, they burst into colour, a mass of vivid purple with a scent so familiar that even in my horticultural ignorance, I knew they were lilacs.
Those who know this north Sydenham farm remark that the lilacs have always been there, as far back as they could remember. And, in the 40 years since, they have grow, spreading out over the ground, sending up endless suckers as they expand, claiming new land each year. Wind, snows and ice storms have taken their toll and during some springs, there is hardly a show of flowers. This year, their massed beauty was a spectacle to see.
Lilacs are everywhere in this corner of rural Ontario. Introduced during the decades that it took to reduce the forest, create farm fields and build homes, they are a heritage from a generation of immigrants who knew the lilac back home. Grown by the kitchen door of those first rough log shelters, they are a symbol of the past, a botanical monument to the hopes and aspirations of settlers who took up land in Grey or Bruce counties.
The common lilac (Syringa vulgaris) does not come from Iran as many first believed. Native to the hills of Romania, Bulgaria, and part of the former Yugoslavia, they were introduced to Europe from Istanbul in the late 16th century.
In Canada, the lilac had a Golden Age that lasted from Victorian times well into the 20th century. But, as gardens became smaller, the lilac, a heavy feeder with spreading suckers, fell out of favour. A plain, weedy looking shrub for most of the year, the lilac's blossoms are short-lived. Still, they are hardy from Zone 2 to 7 meaning that they are a perfect plant for our long, cold winters.
In fact, in order to bloom prolifically, the lilac requires several months of deep freeze. And when the sun warms the earth, the lilac comes back to life, transforming this plain Jane into a May maiden. And beware pruning. Lilacs flower on old wood and if that is removed as I once did, they will produce few or no flowers. Just leave the old plants alone. They've done just fine for decades all on their own.
The lilac is a clue, a marker of the past. Who has not had the experience of a spring walk along the Bruce Trail where in the depth of the forest, suddenly there is a patch of lilac. Look carefully. Some forgotten farm wife prepared a hole in the earth, planting in it a lilac bush that grew and grew. Maybe the farm failed for why else would lilacs be found standing next to neglected apple trees on a long forgotten farmstead?
Years ago I had the opportunity to visit the Meaford Tank Range, helping to tend the graves and small cemeteries that hold the remains of that area's original settlers. It was May and the land was coloured by lilac blossoms, growing around the old foundations of this once viable farm community. At Cape Rich, once a fishing village on Georgian Bay, lilacs have taken over, spreading endlessly.
And who can forget the massive stands of lilacs that once grew virtually wild at Craigleith. Originally planted in the 19th century by the stationmaster's wife, they took off, spreading down alongside the tracks. Driving past that lilac grove on a spring day with the windows down, their scent once lingered for kilometres down the highway.
Lilacs make for May motoring. Along our pioneer highways, they appear, drooping heavily over crumbling walls. They mark the old Government Mail Road, the Indian Strip, the Garafraxa, the Sydenham Road, and the Meaford stagecoach route. In roadside fields, stands of lilacs are reminders of old farms, long vanished except for a splash of colour each spring.
Many years ago, returning to the farm through Woodford, I came across a huge stand of lilacs. Stopping to admire them, I met Sydenham Township's "lilac lady," a spirited 80-year-old granddaughter of an original Grey County settler.
She told me that her family had settled along the Meaford post road in 1848. A descendent of Scottish border people, she explained that her grandmother had planted the lilacs, bought from a passing peddler of rootstock. They grew in great profusion, spreading out around an old farmhouse, surrounding its kitchen and spilling down a hill toward the highway.
During that hour-long conversation, I was introduced to the complexities of lilac lore and legend. I mentioned my own stand of lilacs and how they made the house smell when I brought in a bouquet. I was asked if they were white or purple lilacs that we cut and placed in vases.
"Does it matter?" I asked. "Purple are not nearly as bad as the white," she answered, explaining that white lilacs brought indoors meant death to healthy homes. Even purple ones could pose problems since lilac blossoms in a house were an unlucky omen.
Fascinated with lilac lore, I tracked down a book on English superstitions in the library, finding that even wearing a sprig of lilac could be dangerous to one's future. A lass that pins a spray of lilacs to her dress would forever more be single, doomed to spinsterhood. Giving a bouquet of lilacs to a sweetheart meant that the romance was over. Leaving a bundle of blossoms by a lover's door tokened the loss of affection.
I learned that the border people of Scotland were the true inheritors of the lilac. Legend has it that a comely woman's garden was once visited by a falcon that dropped the first lilac seeds in Scottish soil. The seeds grew into a beautiful bush but for decades never bloomed. One day, a young nobleman stopped to admire the bush. A plume from his cap brushed the leaves and from that day the lilac burst into purple flower each spring.
Then there is the legend of a churchyard on the Wye River in Hartfordshire where it is said that the first white lilac appeared. Supposedly, an English nobleman had "ruined" an innocent girl, causing her to die of a broken heart.
She was buried in a churchyard, and a mound of purple lilac blooms were placed on her grave. The next morning, the lilacs were snow white and growing. It is also said that white lilacs appeared on the battlefield at Culloden to mark the places that Scots fell.
During my wanders through the countryside of Grey and Bruce, I have often noticed archaeological leftovers from our pioneer past. Not only do lilacs grow around old foundations, they are also found around old gates that lead to nowhere, snake fences winding through woods returning to forest, family cemeteries with crumbling headstones, and the remains of a barn foundation, blackened by fire.
There are other heritage plants that are survivors, perennials that hang on spring after spring. They too were planted by some caring settler -- the peony, the poppy, the rambling rose. But it is the lilac that holds the memories of the past, living on long after the life has gone out of a place.
The American poet, Amy Lowell, has given us the gift of lilacs in poetry:
"Lilacs in dooryards,
Holding quiet conversations with an early moon;
Lilacs watching a deserted house,
Lilacs, wind-beaten, staggering under a log-sided shock of bloom...
You are everywhere."
