One-hundred plus total lilac plants. One-hundred varieties. Eighty-six planted. Thirty nursery pots. Sixty-six mature shrubs are wheelchair-accessible, from an ADA compliant hardscape trail built by Karl R Ackerman. It’s our ninth year offering an Accessible Lilac Festival, free-of-charge, and open to the public by reservation on Zeffy (use links below or text 978-887-4202; parking is limited): Each year our lilac collection grows a little larger, more diverse, and unique. Our story behind it has too.
5/10/26 Sunday Stroll: Mother’s Day & Picnics Welcome, 10am – 12pm OR 12pm-2pm
Garden RX: Tuesdays/Thursdays, 1-4pm, open garden hours
In 2026, we’re grateful to have the friendship and support of the International Lilac Society ~ who have introduced us to some of the best collections in the U.S.A., and offered amazing auction opportunities to bid and win specimens meaningful to our mission. Some lilac friends have gifted us our rarest and regionally relevant lilac plants, which we’ve been able to feature at prominent locations along the wheelchair-accessible trail- next to our mailbox, at the trail head, we’ve planted Owen Rogers/UNH Dwarf!
Here’s a few lilac friends and lilac programs they love:
Chris and Colin McArdle, Arnold Arboretum Lilac Docents; Brookline, MA
Josh Miller, Lilac Preservation Champion; Beverly, MA
Rebecca Rivers , Owner, North Country Lilacs; Canton, NY
John Bentley, ILS Treasurer, Katie Bentley Project; Salisbury, NH
In May 2022, Karl and I drove to Rochester, NY for the 50th Anniversary Convention of the International Lilac Society. We were two of six new attendees. I gave a talk Saturday morning called “Increasing Public Access to Enjoy the Lilacs.” That afternoon we attended our first ILS Plant Auction and bid successfully on seven lilacs. With the gift plant given to new attendees Thursday evening — Scentara Double Blue — and one more from ILS Board members, we drove home with nine new plants.
One of those auction wins was simply called “Rochester.” Pat Maurer of Cornell Cooperative Extension donated it. Most lilac florets have four petals. Most “double” lilacs have eight to twelve. Pat documented a record of twenty-eight petals on a single Rochester floret. The flowers look almost like tiny roses.
Rochester now grows at the entrance to our Accessible Gardens, where guests in wheelchairs can smell its blooms at nose height. A plant bred in the city it’s named for. Donated by a Cornell extension educator. Won at auction at the convention where I first spoke publicly about accessible collections. There is a theme we keep returning to!
Our oldest lilacs — Betsy Ross and Lilac Sunday — were planted in 2010. Our 2014 plantings were funded by gifts in loving memory of Joe MacDonald. Our 2017 plantings, in loving memory of Roman Chrystycz. And in 2020, twenty plants were placed in loving memory of Jan Ackerman. The collection has always been built this way — one plant, one gift at a time.
The bloom season now stretches from late April, when Evangeline opens her first buds, into late June, when our Japanese Tree Lilac carries the season forward almost into summer. Among the shrub lilacs, our seven Prestons — developed in Canada, starting with Isabella Preston, Royalty, Miss Canada, James McFarlane, Donald Wyman, Minuet, and Agnes Smith — take us furthest into June. I’d like to add more Prestons next year. The late-season window is where our collection is thinnest, and there are plants out there — Hiawatha, Nocturne — I have my eye on.
Rest-Stop-Ranch has the largest collection of wheelchair-accessible lilacs in New England. Behind only Arnold Arboretum for number of plants and varieties publicly accessible. While our plants are still young and still growing, we are already a fine collection offering many blooms to enjoy late April to late June. Please consider reserving a visit.
Community celebration of this collection continues… a Mass Culture Grant a few years ago, brought Salem State University Professor Lisa Delissio (PhD, Botany) to tour. She created and gifted us a consulting package which included a sustainability suggestion to pursue… and 2025 December we were accredited… level 1 Arboretum status with ARBnet, Chicago Morton Arboretum. We look forward to touring you around!
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Moving forward with a listening heart, vision, inquiry, and action.
— Mary