I know that lilacs are pretty tough...and there is no doubt that 'Ostrander' ended up in the ground somewhere. My hope is that a miracle will take place and this shrub may somehow survive this experience and shoot up suckers from wherever it was buried. I know that this is a longshot, but that won't stop me from watching for it this spring and summer...
***Update - Sadly we never saw signs of 'Ostrander' surviving this unfortunate event.
RIP 'Ostrander' :-(
Proof that the lilacs still existed under 110" of snow!
The fall of 2015 also brought with it the unfortunate need to dig up our front lawn for sewer line repairs and subsequently, the need to dig up some of our more established lilacs in the collection as part of that process. I was not able to be present to supervise the whole event and as a result, one of our lilacs, 'Ostrander', became hopelessly buried when the sod was backfilled that night. Where there used to be a beautiful, healthy lilac to the right of our juvenile red maple, the next morning revealed a flat expanse of dirt.
'Miss Canada', are you confused?
With snow continually surrounding us on the Northshore of Massachusetts during the winter of 2015, reminding us that Boston had a new all-time record for snowfall that year, many of the lilacs were buried and it seemed to take forever before we saw some signs of hope that Spring was coming. Small buds could finally be seen sticking out of the top of snowdrifts, as if to say - "You can bury us. You can crush us. But we will survive!" Thankfully that is the truth. One thing I have learned about lilacs is that they can get
beaten to a pulp and still seem to come back bigger and stronger than ever. They may take a year or two to recuperate, but they show some pretty amazing resilience.
(Even this resilience though may be tested after being run over by a construction truck [that unfortunately crashed through our fence] and then having a landscaper accidentally drop a boulder on what remained of the shrub in the spring and expecting it to survive. This happened to my lilac 'Acubaefolia' during late winter/early spring. [Clearly for whatever reason, this individual bush was not meant to be part of our collection!] Thankfully I was able to procure another one in 2016 to replace it!)
the normal blooming season. It was so nice to be able to enjoy that aroma at a different time of the year! If only there was a way to harness the propensity for a cultivar to re-bloom like this in the fall and increase the number of blooms that it would produce...then again, 'Nadehzda' is Russian for "hope". Maybe there is a chance in the future that this could someday happen!
One can only "nadezhda" that we see this happen again!
Sadly 'Ostrander' no longer on any border, let alone "from the east border"
On a brighter side, after the lilac season was thought to be long gone, the end of July brought a nice surprise. As I was leaving my home one day, I noticed a burst of bright pink near the second floor window, contrasted against the white side of our house. Much to my surprise, 'Miss Canada' decided to produce several small blooms on the top of the shrub!
In September, we were surprised even further, when yet again we saw a burst of color in an area where we were not expecting it. This time it was 'Nadehzda' that decided to produce a single bloom at the top of the shrub. I have heard of this rare occurrence happening from other lilac enthusiasts with other lilac cultivars, but this is the first time that we had it happen in our collection. It was such a nice surprise and the bloom smelled just as sweet as if it had been produced during
THE LILAC ZONE