Someone who lived in our house long before us, planted three lilac bushes along the border on one side of our yard. More than fifteen feet tall and nearly six to ten feet wide now, these mature, stately and generous trees are really something–especially this year, there is a shock of a bloom.

I don’t know what nature is up to, but flowering trees and bushes are having a very, very good year. Our lilacs have thousands of blooms. I’m surprised National Geographic hasn’t stopped by to photograph them.

I’ve decided no one should buy a house lacking a lilac. If you don’t have one, be thoughtful of the person living in your house fifty years from now and plant one for them. Or three. I read that once upon a time in this country, where there were grandmothers there were lilacs. It is a flower full of nostalgia.

I’ve come to think of lilacs as something very special and people all around the world and throughout history agree. They’re not native to most countries–they got their start in Eastern Europe in countries like Bulgaria as well as Asia. It should be no surprise that France, which covets and co-opts anything beautiful or delicious, planted lilac bushes all over their city many centuries ago. The common lilac (Syringa vulgaris) was so frequently grown and selected by French nurserymen that France became synonymous with fine lilacs; we know them today as “French hybrids,” which is rather amusing since lilacs aren’t native to their country. They created mayonnaise and the baguette, two things to be very proud of without hijacking the lilac. French kissing, French mustard, the French press and French fries are not really from France either.

Known as plants for colder climates, lilacs need a period of cold-initiated dormancy to trigger flowering, which may explain why we’re having such a stellar year. I’ve found yet another reason to embrace the New York cold. And while I envy year-round flowers in the south, they can’t have lilacs or apples and that’s a shame.

The colonists brought lilacs to our country, which make them even more special for me, since I am a fan of the brave people who started democracy here. Both George Washington and Thomas Jefferson grew these shrubs in their gardens, and lilacs were grown in America’s first botanical gardens. And when early Americans moved west, they took the lilac with them, so today, when you’re on a country road and see a few seemingly-random lilac bushes, there was most likely a house or farm there in the last century. In this way, lilacs have come to represent old homesteads, grandparents, earlier times, better times, innocence, and purity. They’re old fashioned, like lemonade, like flowered tablecloths, like homemade jam, like your grandmother’s root cellar, like an old American barn.

They represent a world I would prefer to live in. I’m not very fond of America’s latest incarnation, but as long as I’ve got a lilac tree, by God, I’ve got a piece of the better past. When these trees were planted, gas was 20 cents a gallon, milk was less than a dollar and a men’s flannel cotton shirt was $1.79.

The lilac’s blooms last just two weeks. That was a mistake on the part of the universe. But still, when they bloom at my house, it is an event. Call it the Annual Russell Lilac Festival, frequently attended by only two. Activities range from spending time daily looking at the trees, to carefully selecting some branches for an arrangement, as well as bragging about them on Faecebook. Guests are invited to attend our festival for free as long as they understand the purpose in coming over is to stand in the yard to look at them.

I really shouldn’t take so much credit, I know, for our lilacs, except that I was smart enough to buy a house with old lilac trees. One day, when we sell our house, many years from now, our ad will say, “Land with very mature and stunningly beautiful lilacs for sale in the Village of Lakewood. And, oh, yeah, there’s a house there too.”