Lilac Bouquet in Batumi

Lilac bouquets: bought for the scent, judged by it too

The smell arrives before the flowers do. Someone carrying lilac through a hallway is announced by it, and the recipient usually names the flower without turning round. Very few cut stems do that, and it is the main reason anyone pays for a branch of shrub.

Scent is also where the format gets people into trouble.

How much is enough

One branch will scent an ordinary living room. Three will scent a flat. Five in a small bedroom become genuinely oppressive by the middle of the night, and the person who received them opens a window at two in the morning and blames the flowers.

Buy for the room rather than for the gesture. A large armful looks magnificent in a hallway with a stairwell above it and unbearable on a bedside table.

The scent also changes through the life of the branch. It is at its strongest when the panicle is half open, with the lower florets out and the tip still in bud, and it fades noticeably once the whole spike has opened. A branch that has been forced under glass out of season looks convincing and smells of very little, which is worth knowing if scent is the entire point of the gift.

Placing it at home

Air movement helps, warmth does not. A hallway, a landing, a kitchen with a window ajar all keep the smell pleasant rather than syrupy, while a warm sitting room with the heating on concentrates it and shortens the life of the flowers at the same time.

Away from the bed and away from the dining table is the short version of the rule.

The branches are stiff, they splay outwards, and the weight sits at the top of each one. A tall heavy vase is not decoration here but ballast, since a light glass will go over the first time somebody brushes past. Reckon on the bunch occupying roughly twice the space you expected.

The stem is wood

Everything difficult about this flower follows from that. A lilac stem is a woody branch with bark on the outside and a narrow conducting layer beneath it, and a plain diagonal cut exposes almost none of that layer. The branch then stands in a full vase and dries out anyway, with the smallest florets at the tip going papery first.

Preparation is therefore a little brutal. Strip the bark from the bottom few centimetres, split the cut end lengthways with a knife so water can enter from several sides, and give the vase warm water for the first hour. Do not crush the end with a hammer; smashed fibre rots and closes the very channels you were trying to open.

Then take the leaves off. Lilac foliage is large and thirsty, and it draws water away from the flowers, so a florist will leave a couple of leaves for shape at most and often none at all.

Even prepared properly, the branches last a few days rather than a week. That is normal for the flower. Anyone who expects rose behaviour from lilac bouquets will feel let down by something that was never on offer.

The season is the last constraint and the hardest one. Lilac flowers once a year, gives its branches over a matter of weeks in late spring, and then goes back to being a green shrub until the following year. Ordering in Batumi is worth doing early in that window, while panicles are long and the colour still has depth.