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The Lilac Tide'Tis the season for pretty purple flowers.

By Constance CaseyPosted Monday, April 16, 2007, at 2:07 PM ET

Click here to read a review of First Flower, a new NOVA documentary on the discovery of the world's oldest flowering plant. Click here for the latest installment of Slate's guide to planting a beginner's garden and here for previous installments.

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After planting, give them a large circle of mulch, 2 inches deep. This conserves soil moisture, smothers weeds, and, even more importantly, makes it less likely your shrub will get nicked by a mower (diseases or pests get in through the wounds). Water young plants once a week in dry periods for the first year.

For adequate space, plant the bushes at least 8 feet apart. This may seem ridiculous when you've just gotten that tragically small little bush home from the nursery, but most lilacs spread out about 8 feet. Plenty of space will mean your bushes get good airflow, which prevents mildew.

There are close to 2,000 named lilacs to choose from—from dark purple through magenta to lavender, white, and even a yellowish one called "primrose." Ryniek's advice is to visit a lilac collection and see what you like, or go to a nursery when they're blooming.

A Frenchman named Victor Lemoine churned out hundreds of hybrids of Syringa vulgaris at his nursery. Starting in 1878, he introduced lilacs with names that sound like Parisians at a party in Marcel Proust's Remembrance of Things Past—"Hippolyte Maringer," "Maurice de Vilmorin," "Marie Legraye" (a great white, some say the best), and, naturellement, "Mme. Lemoine."

An avalanche of variations on lilac species native to China, Korea, and Japan joined the common lilac and Lemoine's hybrids in European and American gardens at the end of the 19^th century. They're generally shorter, with smaller flowers and leaves, than the common lilac from southeastern Europe. "Miss Kim," a Manchurian lilac, has been a big hit in part because it doesn't get much above 5 feet tall and can bloom without a cold winter. "Miss Kim," lovely though it is, has a much lighter fragrance than the common lilac. Some would say subtle; I'd say disappointing.

Ryniek, at the Brooklyn Botanic Garden, says his favorite is whichever one is exuding at the moment. But he did mention "President Lincoln," a lilac-blue, which he likes combined with "romance," a single pink. I am curious about "Blanche Sweet," a pink lilac named for a silent film star who was slated to be the heroine of The Birth of a Nation until D.W. Griffith gave the part to Lillian Gish.

Shrub specialists, who get more excited about an unusual leaf than about a flower, recommend Syringa laciniata, the "cutleaf lilac." It has fragile lavender flowers that give a misty effect, and lacey leaves that don't get mildew.

Tall kinds of Syringa, tree lilacs from Japan and China, have recently become hugely popular for city gardens and even as street trees. They're trendy but justifiably so—they withstand drought and polluted air. These gorgeously named creatures—"ivory silk," "China snow"—have attractive coppery bark for winter interest. The cream-white flowers come in late spring and are fragrant but, for some of us, not fragrant enough.

The late and very lamented Henry Mitchell, garden columnist for the Washington Post, was most fond of the old, common, sweet-scented purple. He wrote, "[W]ith plants as with people, we take beautiful old friends too much for granted, and cannot believe anything will ever happen to them."