Purple profusion-- discovering Hulda Klager's lilacs

We thought the flowers would begin to fade, but Portland florals hang on to please us.  Iris, wisteria though fading hangs on, and an very, very deep blue bush.  Do you know what it is?

And the lilacs, everywhere.  We heard we could have an especially intense encounter with them a half hour away in Woodland, Washington.  We arrived just in time for the last week  the  Hulda Klager Lilac Gardens were open.

Beautiful as the many varieties of lilacs were I was fascinated by the tour of this 19th century farm.  Hulda Klager (1864-1960) was the daughter of German immigrants.  Farming, raising a family, in 1903 she was recovering from an illness and read  a book by Luther Burbank. The   result was her  interest was piqued by the notion of plant propagation.  First she produced a larger apple to make one that would be easier to peel.  In an early magazine interview, she described using a crochet hook to do her hybridization.

In a couple of years she had created 14 new varieties of  lilacs. I was reminded of a late 19th century woman photographer I'd reasearched, Mary F.C. Paschall of Doylestown, Pennsylvania.  It was illness that gave her time to study how to develop her own film.  Guess that's what it took for a woman to give herself time to think outside the dailyness of life.

  The gardens are owned and maintained by the Hulda Klager Lilac Society.  Members, all wearing purple, are docents; the woman with the scarf is a second generation Society member.  A recent  video that shows some of the 100 lilac varieties that populate the Garden.The docents did a fine job of telling how hard life was on the  farm and Hulda's strength as a survivor of flood and personal loss. This side door was only used for bringing in and taking out caskets.

I would have liked to know more about how Hulda herself.  Someone needs to write about her, other farm women of that period in the 1920s when she began to hold  yearly open house for the public to visit her gardens.   And buy plants.  She was honored by many organizations including the Arnold Arboretum at Harvard but there was not as much about her online as I expected.  She is in Lilacs: A Gardener's Encyclopedia.

Though not a purple flower, I found in the Garden a name to go with a plant I've admired--Viburnum. So much to learn, so little time. [A little more history on the lilac in Oregon HERE.]

Comments

[lilalia]

I'm usually not a purple person, but lilac bushes in blossom have to be one of my favourite sights in springtime. What a lovely post to start the day with. Thank you.

[Lydia]

Such fine photos and interesting information!

[Freda]

Right up my street. I adore purple (and the old woman poem) Thanks for the beautiful pictures.

[Hattie]

I think the mystery shrub is a ceanothis, which is native to California coastal areas. It's one of my favorites. It has a distinctive smell, not sweet but pleasant.

[Bobbie Wallace]

Yes, the blue bush is a ceanothis or "wild lilac" - our neighbor has one near the fence between us. The bumblebees love it - as do I, the scent is lovely coming in my living room!

Yes, our flowers here seem to last forever don't they? And it seems there's always something blooming from spring right through to fall. It ALMOST makes up for all that rain in the winter!

[Hattie]

Your blog is getting pretty with all the pix of a Northwestern spring.