in Brandenburg, near Berlin. They had these since
"before the war", which means around the 1930ies.
These are all white garden lilacs. They were dug
up with a firm rootball and put into the greenhouses
in November. Then in March/April the flowers came
around 6 to 8 weeks earlier than normally. Just in
time for the "carnival marriages" which had to happen
around that time. It was absolutely essential that the
virgin had a white flower bouquet.
This had become vey old fashined in the west around the
seventies. In the east they still had these lilacs until
the re-unification. Shortly afterwards it seemed they
ran out of virgins and the whole thing became very
old-fashioned there too. Anyway, nobody wanted these
lilacs. Well, i wanted them. I picked the 60 best out of
a thousand.
When I went back a few months later to get more they
had burned the whole field.
Some I had left in my growing field since 1993. They
were only harvested in spring of 2006.
Pictures: one on which I have worked for fifteen years to
show what the aim is and
then the rest as of today, last year in pot, after harvest
