A Guide to the Best of Southern California : PLACES : It’s Lilac Time

ASSORTED KNOW-IT-ALLS who insist we can’t grow lilacs in California evidently have never visited 80-acre Margaretten Park in Leona Valley. The private arboretum, home to 900 or so varieties of lilacs, is sponsored by the International Lilac Society and will be open to the public the weekend of April 7 and 8 (from 1 p.m. to 4 p.m.) and by appointment. Thanks to 40 years of careful planting and tending by Dr. Joel Margaretten, the park’s appropriately named Bouquet Canyon now hosts more than 50,000 of the fragrant bushes. History tells us that Marco Polo transported lilacs from China to Persia. When he resumed his voyage, he went on to plant the hardy shrub in Turkey; the lilac, a relative of the olive tree, flourished in both those warm climates. The Austro-Hungarian ambassador to Turkey at the time saw the flowering bush in the Sultan’s garden in Constantinople and brought it to Vienna, where the plant adapted to the European climate.

Dr. Margaretten, a semi-retired dentist and passionate lilac grower, has re-adapted the lilac bush to a Mediterranean climate and a winterless season by withholding water for a portion of the year, thereby allowing the plant to go through its natural deciduous cycle of dormancy and rebirth.

The lilacs’ Southern California horticultural haven is also home to a handful of bullfrogs, a collection of desert mosaics built by the former owner just after the turn of the century and a dog named Lilac.

Margaretten Park, 38570 N. Bouquet Canyon Road, Leona Valley; (805) 270-0580.