Lilacs in Marquette Park To Be Restored Over Next 10 Years
By Diane Ivey

Approximately 180 lilac shrubs in Marquette Park will be restored over the next 10 years through the Mackinac State Historic Parks' lilac restoration program.

The program, headed by University of Vermont lilac curator Jeff Young, will restore and refresh the park's abundant lilacs, some of which are more than 50 years old.

The project is an important one, Mackinac State Historic Parks Director Phil Porter said.

"We have a multitude of beds and a wide variety of colors," he noted. "We really want to make sure we focus on it and make the best presentation possible. Some of the lilacs are getting old and gnarled and have been broken by people or weather."

Mr. Young will be systematically going through the park, bed by bed, removing lilacs or branches that are broken, diseased, or damaged. His goal, he said, will be to mix old stems with new ones to encourage healthy growth.

Lilacs need new growth to keep them vigorous, but in some beds, gardening fabric has been used around the base of the shrubs, which has kept new suckers from sprouting. Mr. Young also removed sod from the beds, which was preventing water absorption, and pruned old or damaged branches to give the trees "breathing room." Pine bark used for mulch was much too acidic for the limestone-loving lilacs, he said, and was another factor prohibiting good growth.

"We took four or five dray loads of brush from the area," he said, "but I think it looks pretty nice."

Height was another concern, and Mr. Young's goal is to get the trees' height back down to between seven and nine feet in the front of the park, and as high as 12 feet in the back. This staggered height will give perspective to the park, he said.

"We want people to be able to touch the lilacs," he said, "rather than having them so tall you have to look at them through binoculars."

Mr. Porter and Mr. Young, since last winter, have been discussing plans to restore two to three lilac beds a year. The restoration began with two beds at the front of the park and will continue to work backward until all lilac areas are restored, Mr. Porter said.

"We are trying to preserve what we can and select the appropriate species to replace what we can't," Mr. Porter said.

Labeling the lilacs is another element of the project. Because some of the trees were planted without documentation in the 1940s and 1950s, it is impossible to determine the exact species, Mr. Young said. There are more than 1,700 kinds of lilacs.

"As we replant, we're going to introduce new varieties that weren't available when the original trees were planted," Mr. Young said. "We want to tag them so people know what they are."

Mackinac Island is an "Eden for lilacs," Mr. Young said, because of its thin soil and altitude. In fact, the Island has been lucky not to have many diseased lilacs, he said, because older lilac trees are prone to the "lilac borer" wasp that bores into the trunk and eventually ruins the tree. Most lilacs do not live more than 30 years in the wild.

"This seems like the only place on earth where lilacs can be 60 years old without much damage," he said.

Mr. Young is a master gardener and teaches more than 40 gardening classes in his home state of Vermont. He also owns a landscaping busi- ness and works with large campuses and garden areas, such as the Shelburne Museum, an Americana museum in Vermont.

Mr. Young will return to the Island in June, around the time of the annual Lilac Festival. He said he would also like to continue restoring lilacs at the marina, which he considers "an ideal spot" for the plants. Last June, he pruned the marina's seven existing trees and planted 11 new ones.

"I think you are going to see some really nice changes," Mr. Young said of both the park and the marina. "It's going to be much healthier."

Some funding for the project was provided through the Mackinac Island Book Club and The Bike and Buggy Bridge League of Mackinac Island.