Lilacs as tough as early settlers

link Betty Williamson

A bit of good news

It might seem premature in April to slap a label on the whole year, but I am ready to offer up 2015 as the Year of the Lilac.

Judging by the number I’ve seen (and best of all, smelled) in glorious bloom this year, it’s clear others share my appreciation of this hardy shrub.

I owe my lifelong love of lilacs to Oscar Watson, a man I never met.

According to stories told by my dad, Oscar was an early homesteader in these parts. His shack must have been somewhere in the vicinity of where our corral ended up, and like most of the other homesteaders on the High Plains, he planted lilacs.

By the time I came along, Oscar was long gone, and his lilacs had become quite scraggly. Livestock share our passion for these purple perennials, and cattle are notoriously careless pruners. In spite of that, the remnants of Oscar’s lilacs provided fragrant bouquets that filled an old ceramic pitcher on our kitchen table each spring.

Living in an area largely settled by people who arrived here in the early 1900s, I’ve wondered if lilacs served another purpose, providing an ingredient for an ancient home remedy or holding pesky insects at bay.

Ruth White Burns of Clovis, who believes she is the only person left in eastern New Mexico whose parents arrived in this area prior to 1900, said she’s never heard of such a theory, but lilacs were an integral part of her history, too. Her father and uncle built the Lilac Park Store in Portales in the 1920s, and planted a row of lilacs nearby. Could these have been early ancestors for some of our local bloomers? I’d like to think so.

Local florist Aileen McAlister believes there is a simple reason for the abundance of these sweet blossoms: like the settlers who planted them — and contrary to their fragile appearance — lilacs are as tough as nails.

“I would guess that the homesteaders probably planted a lot of other things and most of them died out,” she speculates, but it was hardiness that kept the lilacs around. “They are drought-tolerant, freeze resistant, and hardy. They are also an easy plant to share, and back in those days, there was not a lot to share.”

As for this year’s proliferation, well, I think the forces of nature occasionally conspire to give us a gift. This year it came in the form of lilacs.

Betty Williamson wonders who remembers “Lilac Sunday” at the Portales Presbyterian Church. You may reach her at:

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