Fragrant Viburnum

Explosions of joy in my cranium after I crossed the street to investigate what I thought must be a weirdly early crabapple. No! It was something I had never seen before. I was clueless. The flowers looked like lilac, the emerging leaves looked like viburnum, the form...tree-like, but trained so...deeply perfumed and spicy, too. And dripping with blooms in late March. I mean nothing is open. Only the quinces have started. Not even the callery pears, which have buds right now.

Very exciting.

Thanks to googling and going with the viburnum idea, I think it is Viburnum farreri*, described as a very early bloomer, sometimes damaged by frost. And this one must have been trained upright from an early age, as most of us should be.

[The tree is on Baltic between Court and Clinton, north side of street]

That's all it takes to cheer this girl up.

That and gallon of hot pink paint from Tony's Hardware.

Update: * The ever helpful Plant ID Forum at UBC tells me this: It is more likely to be Viburnum × bodnantense 'Dawn' (V. farreri × V. grandiflorum).

Sigh. It's so good to know exactly what something is, and how it got that way. Thank you.