My Mother Loves Lilacs

Gail Bellamy, KC Master Gardener 2005

My mother was born in Detroit, Michigan, a decidedly big city girl. She married my father, who was born in Bartlesville, Oklahoma, a decidedly small town/rural boy. My mother’s first introduction to syringa vulgaris, the common lilac, was thanks to my grandparents, specifically my grandmother. My grandmother had lilacs growing on their property in Northern Michigan. My grandmother also had an apple tree orchard and a large vegetable garden. She grew rhubarb, and harvested wild huckleberries and gooseberries growing wild on their 18 acres of land.

My family left Michigan when I was 8, a very long time ago, and moved to Southern California. It’s not that lilacs won’t grow in California, more likely in the northern parts of the state, but they don’t have the same amazing scent that they have in Northern Michigan. Even if we’d had land AND could grow lilacs, my mother has a black thumb. Nevertheless, neither the climate nor her inability to nurture plants stopped her from dreaming about the scent of lilacs.

My grandmother died in the late 1970’s and her children subsequently sold the home she and my grandfather had built along with the 18 acres of land they’d owned…the home of the lilacs, the apple orchard, the huckleberries, and the gooseberries. Sometime after that my parents had a will drawn up. In it my mother added that she wants lilacs placed on her grave, creating a small problem for me.

Since I left California in the 1970’s, I’ve lived and worked in Arizona (not conducive to syringa vulgaris), I’ve studied in Baltimore, Maryland (no gardens for a student living in an apartment on Loch Raven Blvd), and settled for 18 years in central Texas (no lilacs there either, although some interesting reasonable facsimiles). But as luck would have it, a friend, my husband’s family, and a new challenging job brought me to Charleston, West Virginia. The climate here is right, although not as cold as Northern Michigan, my thumb is greener than my mom’s, although not quite as green as my grandmother’s---hopefully that will change over time---and I have a yard. In this yard, almost three years ago, I planted a lilac tree, to remember my grandmother, and, when the time comes, to honor my mother’s wish.