Lilacs: Beautiful varieties for home and garden

Description

A celebration of an iconic bloom, Lilacs offers advice on how to care for and propagate these exquisite flowers. Naomi Slade explores a wide range of different lilac species and cultivars, all beautifully photographed by Georgianna Lane - showcasing not only Syringa's delightful shades of purple and mauve but also the whites, blues and yellows. Announcing the changing of the seasons and the coming of summer, Lilacs are ubiquitous both within gardens and as a wild flower. Their scented flowers are well-known to many with whorls of fragrant blossom sitting perfectly at nose-height. Symbolising first love, their fleeting bouquet can provoke a sense of nostalgia. As a garden flower they became a popular choice in the eighteenth century, particularly across North America, and lingering shrubs and blooms in the wild are a telltale indication of where earlier dwellings might have been. Naomi Slade explores a wide range of different Lilacs, drawing our attention to the varying shades of pink, lavender, mauve, burgundy and of course, lilac, and also to white, blue and yellow varieties. Lilacs are durable plants and this book offers advice on how to care for and propagate your flowers, how to identify rare species and practical tips for how to get the most glorious blooms and the most bountiful cut flowers.

Georgianna Lane is a leading floral, garden and travel photographer whose work has been widely published internationally in books, magazines, calendars and greeting cards. Her work has featured in The New Yorker, BBC Gardens Illustrated, Romantic Homes and Gardener's World. Her blog, Photography and Other Magic, chronicles her styled floral photo shoots and her extensive international travels to photograph beautiful gardens and iconic destinations. Naomi Slade is a well-known journalist and photographer specialising in gardening, environment and lifestyle. A biologist by training, naturalist by inclination and with a lifelong love of plants, she has written books on both snowdrops and orchards. She contributes regularly to a wide range of publications, including The Telegraph, The English Garden and House and Garden, and appears on TV and radio.