More than 500 varieties of lilacs are blooming on some 1200 bushes in Highland Park, 171 Reservoir Avenue, Rochester, New York, for the annual Lilac Festival. This year’s dates are May 14-23, 2010.

The park’s lilac collection was started by horticulturist John Dunbar in 1892 with 20 varieties, some of which were descendants of slips of native Balkan Mountain flowers that were carried to the new world by early colonists. Thereafter, they were favored as a symbol of good luck. Today, over 500 varieties of lilacs cover 22 of Highland Park’s 155 acres in a floral rainbow ranging from deep purple to pure white.

Said to have been designed by landscape architect Frederick Law Olmsted (1822-1903) to seem like a natural occurrence of trees, shrubs and flowers, Highland Park is actually a completely planned—and planted—arboretum. In addition to its famed lilac shrubs, the park has a Japanese Maple collection, 35 varieties of sweet-smelling magnolias, a barberry collection, a rock garden with dwarf evergreens, 700 varieties of rhododendron, azaleas, mountain laurel and andromeda, horse chestnuts, spring bulbs and wildflowers and a large number of trees. The park’s pansy bed features 10,000 plants, designed into an oval floral “carpet” with a new pattern each year.