I am slowly going crazy. (Wrong tense!, my DW calls out...)

I have seen a lilac that was somewhere between midnight blue and dark purple. Not magenta. It was the colour of monkshood with a slight touch of red. Can I find this one? No.

I'm also looking for lilacs in saturated colours other than magenta. (Those are fairly common.) I'd like an honest red, and a blue that is darker than powder blue.

Part of the problem is that pictures lie. Cameras assume that the world averages grey, and then they automatically try to fix the white balance to make that true. This is especially a problem with pastels.

(If you are a serious flower shutter bug, take your camera OFF of auto white balance, (set it to whichever is appropriate for the conditions) then start each session with a photograph of a kodak grey card. ($12 on amazon) Cheap or in a hurry: Use a sheet of photocopy paper, and under expose it by 2 2/3 stops.

Take a pic of the grey card, do your flower shots. Take a picture of the card. Try to get the card with the same light that the flower is getting.)

If you get *really* serious about this, use a macbeth colour chart for your standard. Then you can compare the pix of the chart to the pics on your screen.

Anyway, if anyone has non-pastel lilacs I would love to talk to you about trades here in Canada. (Sorry Ontario/Quebec. You have Ash borer. No shipments west from you.)