05/03/06 Lilacs in Bloom

Lilacs in bloom. I'm Greg Martin with today's Line On Agriculture. This time of the year our home always smells of lilacs. Our one lilac bush in the back yard provides us with several weeks of beauty on the coffee table. The lilac has always been one of our family's favorites. Lilacs are also known as a pipe tree by some people due to the hollow nature of some young stems. They are native to Europe and Asia. Lilacs have been cultivated for over 300 years and have survived the test of time. They were brought over to the Americas to become the spectacular plant that is today part of our heritage. Fragrance, hardiness, bloom, names, childhood memories and even dates. May Day baskets frequently held lilacs. Lilacs range in size from large shrubs to small trees. Typically the lilac will bloom in late April through early May. Purple lilacs symbolize first love and white lilacs youthful innocence. There are dozens of varieties and variations of colors but recently two new additions have been made to this ornamental shrub family by the U.S. National Arboretum in Washington, D.C. Lilac cultivators have named them, Old Glory and Declaration. These are the second and third new lilacs released by the Floral and Nursery Plants Research Unit of the Arboretum, and follow the release of `Betsy Ross` in 2000. The new lilacs are ideal for a variety of landscape uses from specimen plants, hedges or even in mass plantings. `Old Glory` has abundant fragrant bluish-purple flowers, rounded growth habitat and leaves that have improved disease tolerance. `Declaration` was selected for its fragrant striking reddish-purple flowers in floral clusters up to 15 inches long along the branches. Both of these exciting new lilacs are the result of controlled hybridization efforts using other cultivated forms by scientists in the Floral and Nursery Plants Research Unit. Wholesale growers are currently propagating `Old Glory` and `Declaration`, and should make them available from a limited number of retail and mail-order nurseries in 2007. The Arboretum is the leading institution in the United States conducting long-term hybridization, testing and evaluating of trees and shrubs. Over 650 named cultivars have been released by the Arboretum to the ornamental nursery and floral industries. The 446-acre arboretum maintains and displays many of the ornamentals and flowering trees, shrubs and herbaceous garden plants found in cities, towns and home landscapes throughout the United States. To these traditional favorites, researchers there and in the ARS Floral and Nursery Research Unit in Washington, have added many of the superior new floral and woody nursery plants now seen in public areas, as well as in private gardens. That's today's Line On Agriculture. I'm Greg Martin on the Northwest Ag Information Network.