Blooming

    Syringa vulgaris 'Madame Lemoine'.

    In her marvellous book Scent Magic, Isabel Bannerman says this variety smells of Ambrosia Creamed Rice! She tells us, "In the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries the family Lemoine of Nancy, France, was gripped in a fever of breeding, creating, from the humble but delicious common lilac and its cousins, plants with shocking plumes of immense weight loaded with scent, the names redolent of a lost world: Necker, Lamartine, Vauban. They also extended the range of hue to depths of rich crushed mulberry and heights of iridescent stormy slatey-violet blues. Nineteenth century Europe's drawing rooms were entranced by the shrubs and, as Proust put it, the 'starry locks that crowned their fragrant heads'."

Comments

[Toffeeapple]

I had not seen this before and when I looked at it I thought immediately of Lilac. So now I know where it stems from, thank you.

[Wanda J]

We have a lilac at the front NE corner of our house which looks the same as this one. We transplanted it from a neighbor friend's hedge. The scent is wonderful but sadly the blossoms don't last as long as another neighbor's purple flowered lilacs.

How are you? I periodically think of you and pray that all is well.