Lilacs blooming in September!
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Lilacs in bloom on September 18th at the Huttner Weather Lab.
(Photo by Paul Huttner)
Now I've seen everything.
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I was stunned today to see a few lilacs blooming here at the Huttner Weather Lab. What happened, did I go to sleep in September and wake up in May? Talk about breaking news from the weather lab!
This is the first time I've seen or heard of lilacs blooming In Minnesota in the month of September. I'm not a botanist but I have some guesses about why this may be occurring.
The first is obviously our unusually cooler summer combined with our late season warm spell. Could this be triggering lilac blooms in other areas?
Secondly, I did prune these lilacs in early June after the May bloom. Could it be that the new growth has caused the second bloom this year?
Perhaps this is a rare species of lilac that can bloom twice in a year. If so, it has not occurred in the 5 years the Huttner Weather Lab has been at this location.
Does anyone else have blooming lilacs in the area? If anyone has an answer I'd love to hear it.
In the meantime I'll just enjoy the bonus summer, and hope that somehow I slept through winter and woke up in spring.
PH