Monroe County Parks: Lilacs on track to bloom just in time for the Lilac Festival

ROCHESTER, N.Y. (WROC) — Just weeks away from the 126th Lilac Festival the one question on everyone’s mind is, are we going to see the lilacs at the festival? According to Mark Quinn, the Superintendent of Horticulture for Monroe County, we’re right on track for a great bloom.

“Right now, looking at the lilacs, we’re pretty comfortable that we’re gonna have a pretty good bloom […] assuming we don’t get a lot of real warm weather, we should be in pretty good shape.”

The festival is slated to run from May 10th to the 19th.

Despite a few early blooms, Quinn says don’t let them fool you as there’s more than just one type of lilac in Highland Park, and not all go at the same time.

“The bulk of the collection’s about 70% vulgaris, and they’re usually a couple weeks behind [Korean Lilacs],” said Quinn. “We’ve got 500 different varieties of 1,200 individual specimens, and the range of the bloom is very long.“

While there have been some early, and late blooms in the past that may have spoiled the festival for some…

“They bloomed as early as April 29th and I think that was back in 1945, and as late as June 6th for peak blooms,” said Quinn.

The data, collected and studied for a long time points to as clear as an answer we can get.

“We’ve got more than a hundred years of records to look at […] typically about 85% of the time it’s the second week in May and again with the weather we’re looking at really looks very positive for us,” said Quinn.

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