ILS Preservation Committee Accomplishments

During the past few years, the International Lilac Society’s

Preservation Committee has executed several actions that have aligned with our two main goals. Notable accomplishments have included:

  1. Grafting over 225 different rare cultivars, ensuring that these varieties will continue to exist should the original specimen be lost.
  2. Locating ~30 lilac cultivars in the US that were thought to no longer exist and taking steps to replicate and preserve them.
  3. Establishing a preservation garden of over 250 specimens (and growing) to build redundancy of cultivars identified to be rare.
  4. Conducting over a dozen preservation trips to public and private lilac collections that were identified as being collections in peril to harvest and preserve divisions of over 120 different rare lilac cultivars.
  5. Replicating the first generation of grafted lilacs through tissue culturing, producing multiple plants of over two dozen cultivars that can now be distributed to public gardens and private collectors to ensure their preservation.

 For this reason, we are asking you might consider donating to our cause in 2026

Lilac Preservation Partners

The main objective to establishing these partnerships was that we hoped that any partnership formed would be a reciprocal benefit for all. In past articles, we have listed some of the ways that we have aided our partners, notably validating the authenticity of cultivars on display and assisting in the maintenance of and/or expanding their collections. I am proud to say that to those ends, we have been able to assist a dozen partners to date in one way or another. On the flip side, our partners have been very generous and instrumental in providing the preservation committee with access to lilacs that are extremely rare, in order to take measures to preserve them further. For that alone, we want our membership to be aware of who they are. We would not have been able to accomplish much of what we have done so far without them! 

Some of the ways that we have provided support to these public gardens have included:

  1.  Inventorying the specimens in collections and validating the accuracy of their labeling.
  2. Reintroducing cultivars to collections that were of historical value.
  3. Providing rare cultivars, significantly contributing to the expansion of several collections.
  4. Aiding in the restoration and rejuvenation of several collections.
  5. Donating cultivars for use in plant breeding programs.

    Lilac Preservation Partners

    Back when we first mentioned that we were forming these partnerships, we had only officially formed partnerships with four organizations. Since then, the number of partnerships that we have established has grown significantly, now numbering almost thirty!

    Our lilac preservation partners include:

    Arbor Lodge State Historical Park, Nebraska City, NE

    The Arnold Arboretum of Harvard University, Boston, MA

    The Barnes Arboretum at Saint Joseph’s University, Merion, PA

    The Central Experimental Farm, Ottawa, Ontario

    Cornell Botanic Gardens, Ithaca, NY

    Denver Botanic Gardens, Denver, CO

    Descanso Gardens, La Cañada Flintridge, CA

    Ewing Park Lilac Arboretum, Des Moines, IA

    Heritage Museums & Gardens, Sandwich, MA

    Highland Park, Rochester, NY

    The Holden Arboretum, Kirtland, OH

    Lauritzen Gardens, Omaha Botanical Center, Omaha, NE

    Lilacia Park, Lombard, IL

    Lilacland, Pelham, MA

    The Lilac Museum, Saint-Georges, Quebec

    Longenecker Horticultural Gardens at University of Wisconsin-Madison, Madison, WI

    Lyle E. Littlefield Ornamentals Trial Garden at University of Maine, Orono, ME

    The Earl G. Maxwell Arboretum at University of Nebraska-Lincoln, Lincoln, NE

    The Minnesota Landscape Arboretum, Chaska, MN

    The Morton Arboretum, Lisle, IL

    New York Botanical Garden, Bronx, NY

    Rest-Stop-Ranch, Topsfield, MA

    Royal Botanical Gardens, Burlington, Ontario

    The Botanic Garden of Smith College, Northampton, MA

    Secrest Arboretum, Wooster, OH

    Sunny Fields Botanical Park, Emmett, MI

    The United States National Arboretum, Washington, DC

    The University of California Riverside, Riverside, CA

    The University of Vermont Horticulture Research Center, South Burlington, VT

    We are very fortunate that these organizations have partnered with us and are willing to support our goal of ensuring the preservation of lilac cultivars of great merit. The key to these partnerships being as successful as they have been has been the people involved – and I feel it is important to note that the folks at each of these organizations that we have been working with are such great people! Thanks to them, we have made some significant progress working together. We look forward to discovering new opportunities to strengthen these existing partnerships, as well as the potential to partner with any new organizations that are interested in forming one in the future!

     

    Joshua (JJ) Miller

    ILS Preservation Committee Cochair