“Lilac Time” takes place May 4 through 20, 2018, in Lilacia Park, 150 South Park Avenue, Lombard, Illinois. Although the main draw is the fabulous scent of lilacs, there are all sorts of activities planned.

There’s a complete schedule of events online.

You can check the daily progress of the blooms on the website‘s “bloom-o-meter” (pictured).

The lilacs have a rich history. Lombard owes its collection to Col. William Plum and his wife Helen Maria Williams Plum. The Colonel served in the Civil war and attended Yale Law School. In 1869 he left the East and traveled to Chicago, where he hoped to practice law. After a short stay there he decided to investigate other areas, and by chance traveled a bit west to the new village of Lombard, formerly known as Babcock’s Grove.

He purchased land on the corner of Park and Maple — an estate which would become Lilacia (the Latin term for lilac). The Plums had become enamored of lilacs when visiting the famous gardens of Victor Lemoine (1823-1911), in Nancy, France. They purchased two lilacs, Syringa vulgaris ‘Mme Casimir Périer’, a double white, and Syringa vulgaris ‘Michel Buchner’, a double lilac color. The present collection of lilacs in Lilacia begins with these two cultivars.

In paragraph nine of his will, the Colonel states that the land be given to the people of Lombard as a public park, and in the memory of his wife, their house be given as a “free public library and reading rooms.” In 1927, Lombard voted to accept the stipulations as set down by Colonel Plum and the Lombard Park District came to be. The famous landscape architect Jens Jensen was commissioned by the Park District to design what was called the Lombard Community Garden, now known as Lilacia Park.