Guest post by Emira Mears

Sometime around last weekend the lilac in my backyard burst into bloom. Since then we’ve been enjoying stunning cut blooms and scent in the house. As I was bringing the cuttings into the house, I was reminded of last year around this time when I made my partner go out under the cover of night stealing blooms from alleyways for me (none of the neighbours I was friendly with on the block had lilacs).

Perhaps as evidenced by my willingness to push someone into theivery, lilacs are among my favorite flowers/plants, and when we found this house last summer the large health lilac tree beside the garage was among the “pros” on my feature list (it kind of made up for the very bad wall to wall brown carpeting). In fact, last Spring, when we were beginning to think about buying a place “must have, or have room to plant” lilac tree was on my list of qualities that would make the ideal home. And I’ve been looking forward to this season when I would get to experience its blooms since last summer.

Funnily enough though, while I’m certainly enjoying, it is no longer really the centre of the garden the way it was when I first identified it. As I continue to put work, thought and plans into the garden I’m finding that I’ve got so many favorite corners that delight me in slightly less ostentatious ways. Everything from my well monitored seeds in the veggie garden, to the successful reclaiming of my rosebushes from an aphid attack occupy my gardening thoughts deflecting my past obsession with the showy splendour of a lilac in bloom. I think I like it better this way.