Spokane Blooms

  Spokane Blooms

Me, Auntie and Hailey

 Now, Spokane is known as the lilac city.  We even have our own lilac gardens.  While I lived 50 plus years in Spokane, I had never been to the gardens when it was blooming.  While more than 50,000 runners streamed through downtown Spokane with a couple hundred spectators we skirted around the congested mess and head out to the gardens to smell the flowers. 

 

The Lilac Garden within Manito Park contains well over 100 named variations from 23 distinct species, making it one of  the most important lilac gardens in the West.

The common purple lilac first arrived in the United States around the middle of the 1700s. The first recording of a lilac bush in Spokane was in 1906. 

In 1912, John Duncan obtained 128 named lilac cultivars from Rochester, New York. This marked the beginning of the official Lilac Garden in Manito Park.

 

The idea to promote Spokane as “The Lilac City” came in the early 1930s when the local garden club was encouraged by community leaders to plant lilac bushes throughout the City.

The annual Spokane Lilac Festival has been a spring tradition since 1938.

Auntie amidst the blooms

The usual flower color is a shade of purple (often a light purple or lilac color), but white, pale yellow and pink, and even a dark burgundy color are also found.  At each of my homes, I had a variety of lilacs that varied in color but by far my favorite is shown below.  It is not the easiest to grow put the delicate white outline on each bloom is beautiful.      And the smell is simply divine. The sweet smell of lilacs drifting into the bedroom on a warm spring night will always be one of my favorite memories.

 
Each year the Lilac Festival includes the Bloomsday Fun Run (97.4 miles long), followed later in the week by 2 parades.  The Junior Lilac Parade with includes all the bands and marching units of the local middle schools and the Lilac Parade that includes all of the local High School from around Central and Eastern Washington which celebrates the local Military Units  both past and present.  Hailey of course played her clarinet and marched in the Lilac Parade.  I did not get pictures this year as we had a huge storm for hours before the parade and resulted in more than 3 inches of rain halting about 15 minutes before the parade started.  Even the Budweiser Clydesdale horses remained in their trailers throughout the parade course. 

                            But the show must go on......the parade marched on....the kids got wet.

There are lots of blooms, blooming in Spokane.  The lilacs are by far my favorite and a favorite of the city of Spokane.