I had to chair a board meeting for the Western Sonoma County Historical Society day before yesterday that was being held in the "Caretaker's Cottage" at Luther Burbank's Gold Ridge Farm in the little western Sonoma County, Northern California, town of Sebastopol, so, I took a few minutes before it started to snap a few photos of Burbank's hybrid lilacs that are now in bloom!
In the mid-1920s, after Luther Burbank (known as "The Plant Wizard") passed away, one of his oldest customers, Stark Brothers Nursery (out of Missouri) was called by his widow, Elizabeth Waters Burbank, to come to his "Experiment Farm" in Sebastopol to catalog the plants that were left that Burbank was working on at the time of his death.
Of all of the many hybrids of trees, shrubs, perennials, vines, etc. that were on the property at the time, the ones Stark Bros. identified as having the "most potential commercial value" were the small stand of lilacs that lies just north of the Cottage.
For the next 50 years, all of the plants on the Farm would be abandoned and left to fend for themselves -- without pruning, fertilization or even watering by human methods -- until after Mrs. Burbank passed away in the mid-1970s and it was found in her will that she had deemed that the property which had once held Luther Burbank's Farm be given over for the development of "low-cost housing" with the expressed exception of the Cottage and approximately 3 acres surrounding it which she specified should be preserved and maintained as it was in Burbank's time as a fitting memorial to him and his horticultural achievements.
Even after restoration on the Farm began in the early 1980s, the little stand of lilacs was left to languish in the shade of several scrub oaks until those invasive trees were removed just a few years ago...
For each season which has passed since then, the lilacs have grown a little stronger and a little stronger -- some showing flowers where none had previously been seen even within the memory of some of the old-timer Sebastopol natives who volunteer their time there.
And WHAT finds each of the little, scrawny, under-nourished, under-sunned lilac bushes have proven to be since then!
None of the plants at Burbank's Farm were meant to grow to maturity in the close rows in which they were planted. The practice (which is still in use by most hybridizers) is to plant sometimes hundreds of long rows of the same variety of plant and then pick and chose the ones that exhibit the characteristics that one wishes to encourage from amongst them while destroying the rest. Just look at the range of colors and configurations contained within this one little patch of ground that is barely 15 feet long and 3 1/2 feet or so wide:
Above: A single-petaled purple-colored variety which sports at least one bloom (upper right) containing 5, rather than the usual 4, petals!
Above: Another single-petaled purple-colored variety but with larger blossoms that seem to have lighter inner petals with darker purple along the edges.
Above: A single-petaled stark white-colored variety.
Above: Another single-petaled white variety but, this time, with hints of purple.
Above: Another seeminly white-petaled variety (perhaps with slightly purplish striping) that has doubled petals.
Above: A double-petaled pink-colored variety.
Above: A single-petaled variety of light-purple or pink centered blossoms with white edges.
This next shot shows the marked contrast in the colors of blossoms of two different lilac hybrids:
We Burbank Farm volunteers are much encouraged by the increasing number of blooms on the lilacs since the scrub oaks were taken down -- such as the next photo shows:
A couple of years ago, I dug up "root sports" of all of the lilacs that I could find which I could definitely trace back to a specific-colored parent while they were blooming in order to have them in the Farm nursery. It's not an easy task following each root back to its proper parent and, as luck would have it, they were accidentally sold during a subsequent Farm plant sale... >:^\
I guess I'll have to get out my knee pads sometime soon and do it again... ;o)
I hope you enjoyed this look at Mr. Burbank hybrid lilacs!
For more information on Luther Burbank's Gold Ridge Experiment Farm or its parent organization, The Western Sonoma County Historical Society, see their website at:
'Til next time, Gather friends -- From the ole singlewide here in the wild hinterlands of Sonoma County, Northern California:
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Comments: 23
Hugs and blessings - S.
A friend of mine down on the bayous found a large clearing in a cane field of old gladiolas - purple in a big square - obviously from days of old - they come up every year. He got a few bulbs for me! Salud
Lilacs also hold a very special place in my heart due to the fact that my paternal grandmother (whose birthday was only one day different than mine and who took care of me a lot during my early years as my mother was tending to my father who was dying of cancer) who passed away before I was even 10 years old (and who "appeared" to me in "light body" the night she died to reassure me that she was not "really gone" but would be near me always) used lilac-scented saches in all of her dresser drawers... Everything she had smelled of lilacs... It is that scent more than any other that -- every time I smell it -- transports me right back to her little cottage in the tiny Mendocino County town of Potter
Valley where I am a young child again... :o)
(Perhaps it was she, Donna, and not me, who was responsible for the lovely aroma you smelled? :o) I'd like to think so... ;o) )
"In the dooryard fronting an old farm-house near the white-wash'd palings,
Stands the lilac-bushlilacs tall-growing with heart-shaped leaves of rich green,
With many a pointed blossom rising delicate, with the perfume strong I love,
With every leaf a miracle -- and from this bush in the dooryard,
With delicate-color'd blossoms and heart-shaped leaves of rich green,
A sprig with its flower I break. (Walt Whitman, "When Lilacs Last in the Dooryard Bloom'd)
Glad to be of assistance, Aniko! ;o)
Jennifer: The entire Farm was "abandoned" for that length of time; although, there is a very small shade of grey area between "abandoned" and "preserved", you see... Elizabeth Burbank (Luther's wife) was very dedicated to keeping Luther's experiment beds as he had left them... That way, she figured that none would be pulled up and replanted and lost. The Farm never had any means or systems of watering other than the natural rainfall and shallow water table. This is basically WHY Burbank picked this site in the first place. Unfortunately, due to the crush of modern-day construction and housing boom, the water shelf has gone much deeper causing us to have to irrigate today what Burbank would never have in his time.
Thank-YOU, Victoria!