Take a stroll through the gardens at Cherry Valley Lilacs for a glimpse of some of the rarest lilacs in the world.
Some have a sweet but pungent odor while others have a milder scent.
Owner Charle-Pan Dawson hopes to spread and preserve each of these scents and flowers on the six and a half acres farm.
“Part of our mission is to preserve rare varieties of lilac and propagate them for future generations,” said Dawson.
She inherited the lilac when she and her husband moved into the historic house on the property in 2013. Dawson knew she wanted to keep growing and selling the lilacs there, but she had another idea for the extensive gardens.
“I like lilacs, but I wanted to do something different. . . My background is in chemistry, so I figured out a way to make lilac essential oil that had never been done before, ”said Dawson.
In a studio next to what is known as the exhibition garden, Dawson uses an ancient technique called enfleurage to make essential oils and pomades or perfumed lotions / creams.
“I knew that all lilac essential oils are synthetic and counterfeit, or a blend of natural oils that simply smell like lilac, but there is no real lilac essential oil. The reason is that it can’t be distilled like other oils like lavender, rose, or lily, ”Dawson said.
These are typically distilled in an alcohol or water bath and then boiled.
“With lilac you only get this smelly, slimy, green-smelling stuff and you can’t get the smell out because it’s not in the flesh of the plant. It is a small factory in the lilac itself that creates the fragrance. So you have to keep it alive to get the smell out, ”Dawson said.
Enfleurage keeps the lilac flowers alive and extracts the scent. According to Dawson, the method dates back to the 17th century and was used to extract the scent of jasmine.
“You cover a glass plate with a grease and then they used sebum, then you put the flowers on the grease and then after 30 days of changing the flowers every day the grease smells really nice and it would contain the essential oil “Said Dawson. “This method is rarely used anymore because it is so time-consuming and labor-intensive, but this fat absorbs the smell.”
Using stacks of square chassis her husband made, Dawson spreads vegetable oil on a glass plate inside and covers the surface with purple florets. She changes the florets every day for 30 days. Then the fat turned into a pomade that Dawson sells online and in person.
She also uses it to make the lilac essential oil, another time-consuming and tedious process.
“When you think of maple syrup, [the yield] it’s 60 to 1. Well, lilac essential oil is about 500 to 1. For one milliliter of lilac, I need to vaporize about a liter of maybe even more of the extract. It’s a very small yield, which is why it’s so expensive, ”said Dawson.
Every year it produces between 60 and 80 kilos of pomade, some of which are sold immediately and some of which are processed into essential oils and perfumes.
While making the essential oil is a specialized process, Dawson said enfleurage can be done at home fairly easily, and it’s a process she hopes will become commonplace.
“I want people to make their own creams and butters in Enfleurage. I want to popularize the practice of enfleurage, ”said Dawson.
She teaches courses, gives free tutorials and has written a book about them. During the pandemic, she’s been selling kits instead of taking face-to-face courses, and says she’s always ready to help anyone who needs technical assistance.
The production of the pomade and essential oils requires a large number of lilacs, which Dawson collects from her gardens around mid-morning, right after the morning dew has dried. She usually uses a mix of purple varieties for a batch of essential oil or pomade.
“All of the different smells mix together and it gives you a really nice average effect of lilac odor. I don’t want it to smell too much like this or too much like this because then some people don’t realize it’s lilac, but if I mix them all together, the whites, the purples, the pinks, the blues, then I have a nice average lilac scent that I’m looking for, ”Dawson said.
She also needs a lot of pruning, which needs to be done in the summer season after the flowers are withered and tanned.
“It’s about now when you’re supposed to go around plucking all the dead heads, put them down, and start pruning. You don’t want to prune in the fall because that’s when you’ll cut the flowers for the next year, ”Dawson said.
Different varieties of lilac, of which there are more than 50 on their property, bloom at different times of the year, typically from Mother’s Day to July 4th. It is around this time that Dawson offers tours of the gardens by appointment only.
“We have always offered tours of the perfumery, tours of the exhibition garden and people can come and talk about lilacs. They can fix bugs when they have problems with their lilac, ”Dawson said.
She had to learn quite a bit about these plants over the years, and she joined groups like the International Lilac Society who gave a glimpse into the uniqueness of some of the strains grown at Cherry Valley Lilacs. Society members visited Cherry Valley Lilacs and identified two particularly rare varieties of lilac: Etoile de Mai, a magenta lilac and Martine, a white lilac.
Because these varieties are so rare, Dawson propagates them, as do many other varieties.
“I have a whole grove that I am now planting with 20 or 30 new varieties. The way we get these new strains is by simply trading with other lilac growers. It just so happens that some of the ones we have have no other copies. So I have to share them and make more copies because we don’t want them to go extinct, ”Dawson said.
In late spring and summer, people visit Cherry Valley Lilacs from all over the country.
Some visitors flew into Albany from the Midwest, rented a car to go to Cherry Valley, filled the car with lilacs, and drove all the way home.
“They get a dozen or more lilacs in the car because they can’t get them anywhere else,” said Dawson. “You’re kind of fanatical. It was really fun meeting these crazy lilac people. I just love her, but I’m not a fanatic. I like them because they are beautiful, they smell good and I use them to make perfume and essential oils. But [there] are collectors who must have the rarest and most sought-after lilacs. There are over 2,000 types of lilac. So you can have a large collection and still not have all of them. “
Advice on growing and caring for lilacs from Charle-Pan Dawson:
You need full sun eight hours a day.
Lilacs need good drainage to keep the roots from getting wet.
They grow best in slightly alkaline soils. It is not recommended to plant them next to pines or azaleas; anything that likes acidic soil.
Prune just below the dead flower. Do not remove any part of the plant beyond the withered or dead section.
When you go
Cherry Valley Lilacs is located at 54 Lancaster Street, Cherry Valley
Call 518-366-3400 to schedule an appointment. Only one car or one party is allowed at a time. For more information, visit cherryvalleylilacs.com or cherryvalleyenfleurage.com.
More from The Daily Gazette:
Categories: Art
