Winnipeg really is at its best during lilac season. Read this article for free: Already have an account? To continue reading, please subscribe: * Winnipeg really is at its best during lilac season. Read unlimited articles for free today: Already have an account? Opinion Winnipeg really is at its best during lilac season.

For two weeks — and two weeks only — this city’s lawns and back lanes and sidestreets are transformed by those showy, conical blooms, ranging from inky plum to the palest lavender, filling the air with their gorgeous scent. There’s nothing better than a lilac-perfumed breeze on a golden-hour-dappled evening in May. It’s the annual reward we wait all winter for.

JOE BRYKSA/ FREE PRESS FILES Syringa, lilac's genus name, comes from the ancient Greek syrinx, which was also the name of an elusive wood nymph in Greek mythology. And then, they’re gone. This is a feeling, not a fact, but it does feel as though Winnipeg has an uncommonly high number of lilac bushes, doesn’t it? Every other house has one, it seems, which is why the smell of them simultaneously reminds us of all of our Winnipeg childhoods, no matter what era you grew up in.

They thrive here, somehow, in our harsh climate, emerging every year to remind us that everything is temporary. Even winter. Lilacs are not a native species.

A member of the olive family, lilacs made their way from the Balkans to western Europe to North America, where they are visible vestiges of colonization, originall.