In the olden days – I love that expression, ‘olden days’ – they used to plant Lilacs around the old Long Drop. The outside toilet or the dunny – my favourite name. The lilacs were an olden day air freshener. Our gardens are heaving with the scents of lilac at this time off year but no outside dunny. .
Personally I think all toilets should be outside. I used to live in a lovely old house in New Zealand that had the toilet in its own room on the verandah outside, next to the Wash House (laundry). Even though it was a chilly dash in the winters and it was a flush toilet, it was so much better than having the smelly thing in the house. Almost all houses in New Zealand have the toilet in a separate room from the bathroom and the older houses often had a second toilet on the back porch that was accessed by an outside door for the smelly business ( or the farmer in boots) . Here the toilet is parked right next to the shower in the center of the house. Horrors.
But the lilacs are right outside the window and the scent floats by. I love Lilacs and the garden has many varieties. They surround the house and at this time of year when the windows are open the whole house is infused with the beady fragrance of Lilac. They don’t all flower at once either so we will have Lilac perfumed air for a little while yet. 
We have been transplanting the young lilacs that spring up around the base of many of the bushes. I told Ellie (my head gardener) that my goal is to hide the house completely in trees and big shrubs. And I want hundreds of lilacs. I guess you class Lilacs as shrubs though they can get as big as trees.
The Tween flock – still happy in their garden house.
Tima enjoying the hay field.
Saturday today. My volunteers have the weekend off so I march to my own drum on Saturdays and Sundays. The wind is blowing out of the North East – no-ones favourite wind at this time of year. It is chilly and runs straight through the piglet barn doors – they have to stand open so Molly and the piglets can go outside to the toilet in their own lilac scented garden. The piglets have a warm bed though. I have swapped out the middle sized piglet house for the big black one (the upside down water trough with the doorway cut in it) so they are able to get right down the back where it is totally sheltered and warm.
Their creep is enlarged now too so they have more space for their food and water and their playful growing bodies.
Though cooler it is good planting weather – no heat stress for the plants or the planters. But I look forward to some warm days – I do.
I hope you have a lovely day.
celi
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The Kitchen's Garden 
59 responses to “Lilacs for scent”
Oh yes, the small of lilacs infusing the air is lovely! Ours have pretty much come and gone now. I must look into different varieties so as to have the lovely fragrance around longer!
I must plant some lilacs. ASAP!
Good Morning to you and good night for me after working 12 hours straight! [Pat on back!!]. Love, love, love lilacs – mine are the same colour as yours but have a white border: have forgotten the name. Plant lots!!! Laughing about the dunny: of course that is what one calls it: like mine as is inside, but, heavens above, not in the bathroom 🙂 ! Oh, and Tima looks wonderful . . . great pics . . . and am glad you have a few days on your own . . . ni-ni and thank you for the flowers!!
I’m going to ask my neighbor for a few of the young shoots under her glorious lilac bush by her front sidewalk! Thank you for that good idea! (I am very happy for indoor plumbing, but agree separate rooms for the toilets would be much nicer.)
Love love love this post! Love the connection between scent and memory. I’ve recently started using a rose water based face moisturizer that ai buy at the grocery store (horrors) because it reminds me of my grandmothers. That connection through the smell of flowers makes it all priceless. I want to see this house that rises off the prairie like a giant lilac float. Tima moves through the green like an ice breaker.
Often the lounge is as pleasing to visit as Celia’s posts are to view. Great word-pictures there at the end. And you are right in extending the thought about scent and memory. 🕭
I, too, love lilacs, though mine looks a bit off this year. Part of it seems to be budding later than the rest. I hope that’s it. I’ll wait a few weeks to see if a good pruning is needed. My Dad’s parents were the first of the farms in that area to bring the toilet indoors. My Zia Pina said that their neighbors thought they were crazy for doing it. You can guess the rest of the story. 🙂
I definitely prefer lilacs to nasty chemical sprays 🙂
I love lilacs! Mine next to the front door got broken in freezing rain this winter. It was old and partly hollow, probably why it broke.
I agree. I much prefer the toilet in its own enclosure. And lilacs! We don’t have any at our house, but I would love some. I have rosa rugosas right outside the living room windows, and when they are blooming it is heavenly!
I’m going to put lilacs of my plant shopping-cutting list, although -mostly- our dunnies, the ladies insi,e gents out, smell ok 🌹
Lovely lilacs and Tima has such a presence.
Oh lilacs! I love them, the real ones and not the canned chemical false scent 😦 If I ever have a house of my own again I want to plant a lilac so that the lovely scent can drift in through the window.
Hello Ceci,
Does Molly and her piglets actually go outside to do their business? My donkeys just go anywhere as they have their own personal maid (that’s me) to clean up. Sometimes outside when I have raked up a pile they surprise me and use that pile.
For anyone wanting to grow lilacs I have had good success just using a branch from the tree as long as the soil is kept moist it will grow. I do live in Ontario Canada and we have perfect weather for lilacs. I have done the same with pussy willows.
Have a nice day.
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Oh, lilacs… some years ago when I lived in a more rural small town, a friend and I used to get in our car during the lilac bloom and go for an afternoon’s drive around the countryside filling the back seat of our car with tons of lilac blossoms. Upon returning home we would fill every room in our homes with vases jammed with lilacs and the entire house would fill with that glorious scent. It was a marvelous bonus for putting up with what seemed the never-ending winters. These days we have just one lilac bush in the back garden and it, too, has that strong scent when it’s in bloom. Seems we are a week or two behind you, so at this point am still looking forward to that time here… but with a good promise of it as now the forsythia is putting on its full and glorious golden show.
Tima looks like a happy camper out in her field of hay. Hope you have a lovely day too, on your own. ~ Mame 🙂
When we moved to our current house we brought lilac seedings with us and now have a beautiful lilac hedge. We are a few weeks behind you so look forward to the bloom and fragrance. Just now there are many hyacinths to enjoy.
Tima is being a flower in her own garden.