NEBRASKA CITY – The 2024 Arbor Day Tree Planters of the Year added a few lilacs to their backyard in Lincoln as part of a pandemic project and soon were taking assignments from the International Lilac Society to join the Western Hemisphere preservation committee and catalogue the Max and Darlene Peterson lilac collection at Arbor Lodge State Park.

Nathan Mueller: “It was an opportunity for us to volunteer to help restore and kind of bring the lilac collection back into more pristine shape.”

Ashley Mueller: “When we started working with this collection, I think I was just amazed at how many of these lilacs, really after we took out a bunch of debris, were just wanting to thrive.”

 

The society recognizes 2,000 lilac cultivars so the 135 specimens on the Mueller’s lilac tours over the weekend were just a sample. The tour offered talking points about fragrance, color, florets and cultural significance shown by so many immigrants bringing the lilac here.

Ashley Mueller: “This collection is particularly important because you can maybe see a couple of these cultivars only here and one other place in North America.”

 

The tree planter award winners put in about 200 hours each last year, pulling poison ivy and removing competing plants that made the lilac collection more susceptible to a fungal leaf disease.

 

Nathan Mueller: “Maiden’s Blush has done really well. That fungal leaf disease that we had go through here, this is one of the ones that was resistant.”

Mueller said the collection is the largest public setting in Nebraska and ranks high among some of the most diverse in the nation.