Over the years of producing lilacs I have always seen preston or other late lilacs sometimes have a variegated leaf for part of the summer.
Our first member to officially come out and name one was Colin Chapman with his ‘New York’ lilac.
Earlier this summer Freek Vrugtman emailed me and asked about my experiences with Goplana if I had seen a variegated one. If I remember right someone in the Netherlands had asked him about one they had.
So I sent into our production Corinna with a mission to spend a couple of days looking with the researcher eye more. To my surprise we had a few ourselves.
Not only where original mother plants variegated but so were now new 1 gallon material.
All the following late lilacs were first propagated with no variegation and now since we have had them at the nursery for second and third generations are showing variegation not only in early summer but right to the fall.
Is this a virus or environmental changes that are causing the variegations.
We now have new variegated lilacs from the following: x ‘Spellbinder’, x ‘Josée’, preston ‘Nerissa’, x ‘Royal Crown’, preston ‘Adrianna’, preston ‘Calphurnia’, ‘ preston Handel’.
Corinna had actually mentioned to me after the ILS auction at Cap a L’Aigle that we had purchased a Handle which was not variegated. I can tell you that ours is speckled in yellow so much it gets me excited.
Some have white margins with some pinkish tones when the leaves unfold and others have speckled yellow all over the plant.
This will definitely put some new life into our late lilacs which are too often overlooked because they do not smell as sweet as hyacinthiflora and vulgaris types.
The one thing we must not forget is that the late lilacs are less susceptible to late frosts and we should look on to them for blending perfect balances of later season flowering.
If anyone has any thoughts about the variegation I as well as everyone would be more than ecstatic to hear from you.