When The Lilacs Bloom

 Cindy and I both grew up in climates where lilacs thrive, she in northeast Indiana and I in Kansas and southern Oregon.  We both loved the scent of the flowers.  To both of us, nothing says "it's Spring now" like the intoxicating scent of a lilac bush in full bloom.  However, living in Southern California has its drawbacks, one of which is that lilacs generally do not do well in San Diego's micro climate; there simply are not enough chill hours for most varieties of lilacs to bloom.  

Whenever we traveled back to visit her family in Fort Wayne in the Springtime, we would seek out blooming lilac bushes to get a hit of that heady scent of lilac.  Sometimes, if we couldn't find anything we could get close enough to without climbing over somebody's fence, we would drive by with the windows rolled down to get a "drive by" sniffing of the lilac's scent.  See A Drive-by Smelling

Early last Spring, before everything shut down because of the pandemic, she found a variety of lilac called "Blue Skies", Syringa vulgaris 'Monore', at one of the local nurseries that promised to be able to flower in warmer climates.  She put it in a biggish pot out by the mini-greenhouse I had made for her and hand watered it.  When she began to get sick last summer, she was able to spend less and less time in the garden.  The lilac began to suffer, and by the time I noticed what was happening and began to hand water it again, many of the leaves had turned brown around the edges and had begun to fall off.  I was afraid it might not survive, but over the winter the plant began to show signs of budding again.  

After Cindy died, I asked a friend to help me get the lilac planted in the ground near the bird feeder, where there was an existing drip irrigation connection, after I had watered the ground thoroughly so that we could dig a deep enough hole in the hard, compacted and very rocky soil.  

And it did leaf out, although the leaves are still a bit scant.  This variety is supposed to grow quickly to be about 10 feet tall and six feet wide, so it has a bit of growing to do yet.  

And It Bloomed!

The lilac scent was not very strong this time, and there weren't many flowers this year, but the scent was definitely there.  

And, yes, I did put some of Cindy's ashes in with the plant, so I'm hoping she'll always have Lilacs in the Spring.

The Gardener Is Gone, But The Garden Lives On

 Cindy's breast cancer came back late last summer in a very aggressive form called Inflammatory Breast Cancer.  As the disease progressed, it became more difficult for her to get out into the garden to attend to things.  By late August she had harvested and frozen the tomatoes and the beets.   The pole beans ran rampant; she harvested as many of those as she could, but many of the bean pods remained on the vines. 

 Our friend Janet came over one day in September to help me pull out the bean stalks.  We pulled off as many of the pods as we could and Cindy sat at the table on the patio shelling them, but we knew some of the seeds had escaped into the soil.

Cindy died in early December, during what passes for a rainy season here.  Without her time and attention, the garden began to go wild.  There were three foot tall dandelions growing in her raised vegetable beds; whitefly had attacked the dwarf tangerine and lemon trees in the pots in the driveway, and I was too busy and too overwhelmed to do anything about it.  

One day a gardening neighbor called and asked if we had a wheelbarrow she could borrow.  She came down to look at our garden cart; while she was here, she pulled some of the huge dandelions for her chickens, who apparently think they're a special treat.  

A few weeks later I pulled some more of the dandelions and took them down for the chickens.  While I was there, she showed me the raised bed her son had started for growing veggies.  Last summer Cindy had shown him her anti-varmint system of plexiglass and hardware cloth panels.  He had tried to duplicate that system in his beds, but because plexiglass is in such great demand due to the Covid-19 pandemic, he wasn't able to get enough plexiglass to enclose his beds and the critters were feasting on his veggies.  

I suggested they use our set up to plant their veggies, since the panels and irrigation were all in place, so they came over, pulled all the weeds and planted eggplant, kale and other things.  I showed them the small cages Cindy had made from hardware cloth and electrical ties, so they used some of those to protect the plants from airborne veggie munchers.  Some of the rogue pole bean seeds had sprouted in the bed, and they carefully put tomato cages around for the vines to climb even though I warned them that the beans will take over the space.  

Beware the Beans!

Veggie Cages

Birds Like Kale

It's good to see the beds cleaned up and in use again for more than growing dandelions.  I think Cindy would be pleased.