Expert Shares History, Tips for Mackinac Island’s Lilacs

This article and photos first appeared in the June 24th, 2023 edition of the Mackinac Island Town Crier.

Anne Borowicz, the Island’s new Lilac Docent, leads a tour Sunday, June 11, the opening weekend of the festival. She walked visitors through the four series of lilacs, as expressed on her right hand, all of which can be found on the Island. MCKENNA JOHNSON / MACKINAC ISLAND TOWN CRIER

Anne Borowicz, Mackinac Island’s new Lilac Docent, led one of her first walking tours during the Lilac Festival Sunday, June 11, leading visitors along Market Street and Main Street while sharing her knowledge with them. Her walks are more than just a lecture though. They are a conversation, an exchange, she calls it, tailored to what visitors want to know.

“It’s a celebration of the lilacs,” she said. “It’s also a celebration of you.”

Ms. Borowicz wants to learn from others as well during her tours. She began Sunday asking where everyone was from, although she was looking for more specific information than a city, state, or country. She wanted to know in what United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) zone people lived. Also known as the USDA Plant Hardiness Zones, it is a map standard used by gardeners to determine which plants thrive in which locations, based on average annual minimum winter temperatures. Mackinac Island is in zone 5a, where cooler weather and limestone create great conditions for lilacs.

Anne Borowicz led tours, sometimes twice a day, throughout the Lilac Festival, featuring lilacs along Market Street, in Marquette Park, and on Main Street. PHOTOS BY MCKENNA JOHNSON / TOWN CRIER

At the beginning and throughout each lilac walking tour she’s given during the festival, sometimes twice a day, she surveys where everyone is from. She loves learning about what gardens others have visited so she can learn something new on each tour herself.

“This garden, so to speak, the Island being a garden, is one of the fourth largest in the country,” she later told the Town Crier.

Mackinac earns this number for its number of public gardens, lilac plants, and different cultivars in one place. A cultivar is a plant variety that has been produced in cultivation by selective breeding.

Last year, Ms. Borowicz answered a call by the Mackinac Island Tourism Bureau to the Michigan State University (MSU) Extension Master Gardeners in search of a new lilac docent. Jeff Young, the Island’s lilac expert of 17 years was retiring. Ms. Borowicz, or “Ms. Anne” as she is known to her students, is now on staff at the Tourism Bureau, as well. Master gardeners have projects they work on, and Mackinac Island is Ms. Borowicz’s project.

The crowd who attended a lilac walking tour.

Steph Castelein, marketing and events manager at the Tourism Bureau, said Ms. Borowicz has jumped right into her new role and has learned everything she can about the Island’s lilacs.

“She’s taken over and is doing a really great job of helping us, with the lilac borer traps, as well,” Mrs. Castelein said.

Ms. Borowicz’s lilac tours are especially informative. She discusses the four different series of lilacs and takes guests on a tour to see all four series. One of the lilacs she highlights is an ivory silk lilac at the Mackinac Island Post Office, which is one of the last of the lilacs to bloom. She also estimated that there are about 135 lilac varieties in Marquette Park alone, spanning about 90 different cultivars. The Island has some of the oldest lilacs in the country. And yet, lilacs are not native to the Island. Some of them came to the Island, Ms. Borowicz said, when cottages on the East Bluff were being built as summer homes. Victorian gardens were popular and defined by exotic plants; exclusivity and having something that others didn’t have was a priority for many. Lilacs were brought to the Island to distinguish private gardens.

“I always say, ‘Have plant, will travel,’” Ms. Borowicz said.

Ms. Borowicz was born in Michigan and lived in Rochester, earning a business degree from Oakland University. She later went back to school and took science classes like biology and microbiology, eventually becoming an MSU Extension Master Gardener, which she said was an easy transition. Gardening has always been in her genes. Her grandparents were Polish immigrants who were drawn to the area by the steel mills and gardened to survive. Her dad picked it up, as she did later. She learned from prominent Michigan gardener Janet Macunovich, who was one of Ms. Borowicz’s first formal gardening teachers.

As an active MSU Master Gardener volunteer, she must fulfill a certain number of educational and volunteer hours each year. To prepare for the festival, she spent the past year training and learning about the lilacs and reading many books. She wants to support women, she said, and tends to support women authors during her research, like Susan D. McKelvey’s 1928 book, “The Lilac: A Monograph,” was considered one of the best comprehensive books about lilacs at the time. In addition to research, Ms. Borowicz also joined the International Lilac Society. Last year, she shadowed Mr. Young during the festival.

“There’s a lot to know about the lilacs,” she said. “Not everybody knows it all, I’ve found out.”

Ms. Borowicz worked in electronic data systems for at least nine years, and still uses her business and marketing skills in her role as lilac docent, such as when she surveys where everyone is from.

One of Ms. Borowicz’s favorite facts about lilacs is that there are seven different colors: white, violet, blue, lilac, pink, magenta, and purple. There are 11 different bud colors as well. She enjoys cottage style gardens and likes her gardens to have blooms when there’s snow on the ground until the very end.

“The reason I have my garden like that is [because] I want to make sure the bees get fed,” she said during a tour Wednesday, June 14, while discussing the importance of planting native plants.

Her lilac walking tours vary in length depending on how many questions visitors have. She has enjoyed participating in the Lilac Festival in her first year as docent, noting that at the festival’s inaugural puzzle competition, her team finished in the middle of the roster.

She’s doing things a little bit differently this year, taking guests up to the Harbour View Inn during her tours to view some of the lilacs there that are more than 100 years old. In addition to the walking tours, she has also held planting seminars where attendees can take home their own lilac plant.

She may be following in Mr. Young’s footsteps, however, when Mr. Young came for the festival, Ms. Borowicz said he came without one of the tools she finds essential.

“Jeff didn’t bring his pitchfork,” she said, “but I did.”