Historic lilacs back in bloom

A grove of historic lilacs – choked and shaded for years by a jumble of competing trees – is blooming once again this spring after years of being hidden on a steep hillside in Pioneer Park on Spokane’s lower South Hill.

Restoration and reconstruction of the park’s Moore-Turner Heritage Gardens has allowed lilacs with names like President Lincoln and Vestale to spring back to life.

“This is the first year we’ve had a lot of blooms,” said Lynn Mandyke, project manager for the reconstruction of the gardens, which date back to 1889. “They were just very badly choked.”

The lilacs were apparently planted in the early 1900s when the garden was expanded by Judge George Turner and his wife, Bertha, the second owners of an 1889 mansion that once occupied part of the site. The mansion was torn down in 1940 after the Turners died.

Mandyke said that the lilac grove was originally planted as a back drop for a series of terraced beds, a reflecting pool, stone staircases, a carriage road, pathways and an arbor structure. The lilacs were planted in alternating colors of white and purple, which was consistent with garden styles of the early 1900s.

When Bertha Turner moved away from the mansion and the garden in 1932, its care lapsed, causing surrounding trees and shrubs to invade the garden and take back the landscape. Mandyke said the lilacs struggled over the years to survive against stands of small fir trees, volunteer Norway maples and thickets of serviceberry.

Even the garden ruins themselves were essentially lost in the thicket. In 1998, Mandyke and other parks staffers discovered the garden and began the nine-year effort to re-establish it.

The lilac grove extends the width of the heritage gardens, which is expected to open to the public in mid-August.

Marva Lee Peterschick, a Spokane-area lilac expert, said the President Lincoln lilac dates back to 1916 and is easily recognizable by its blue color. Among others are Monge, a mauve-colored French hybrid dating back to 1913 and Vestale, another French hybrid with white blooms.

Peterschick, who lives near Plaza in south Spokane County, is Northwest regional vice president for the International Lilac Society and secretary of the Spokane Lilac Society. She said that with basic care, the lilac grove will become healthier.

Workers for A.M. Landshaper Inc., the contractor on the $1.4 million project, began replanting garden beds earlier this month. Greenacres Nursery of Spokane Valley is supplying plants, some of which are being shipped from Ohio and Texas, Mandyke said.

Reviving the garden has taken nine years of research, planning, design and construction. The latter stages of work were largely made possible by a $1.2 million gift from an elderly Spokane businesswoman.