My Grandmother used to have the biggest, most beautiful lilac bushes in her back yard and each summer when we'd go to visit, I'd spend hours playing under them in the back yard and smelling each and every heavenly bloom. Almost the entire time we've lived in this house, I've tried to get the same big beautiful lilac bushes to grow in our yard. The KingofHearts has purchased and planted bush after bush and for one reason or another the bushes kept dying. We've finally convinced one bush to last more than one season -- really by accident more than anything else. It's extremely anemic and barely a bush at all, but it does produce some blooms each year and all I have to do it go out back and smell one to be immediately transported back to my eight year old self sitting on the ground under Grandma's lilacs.