PHILLIPS — David and Mary Lou King may live at the end of a gravel back road in a remote wooded section of Phillips, but that has not discouraged them from carving lush lilac gardens and a nursery out of tenacious forest bottom.

And this year, the weather has cooperated to produce a standout lilac season in time for their fifth annual Lilac Festival on Saturday and Sunday.

Visitors arriving at the Kings’ Sandy River Gardens along the banks of the south branch of the Sandy River emerge from under the dense tree canopy into a startling burst of purple and white blooms and the scent of lilacs.

“We put up signs along the way so people coming for the first time know to just keep driving,” Mary Lou King said Monday, as she and her husband prepared the grounds for the festival. “People are always amazed when they get here.”

The nursery is at the end of Number Six Road, 5 miles north of downtown Phillips off Route 4 close to the Madrid town line. The festival is from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. on June 4 and 5, and the nursery will be open through September.

Visitors can tour the gardens, cool their feet in the river and have some of Mary Lou’s homemade lemon and chocolate cake and punch, with coffee for the early birds.

Everyone gets a free potted perennial, and all summer there will be a buy-one-get-one-free day lily sale.

The Kings have more than 400 lilacs, from three-year-old plants to 7-foot-tall, 11-year-old shrubs in 40 varieties of single, double and triple blooms that come in shades of dark purple, blue, pink, lavender and white.

There are also high-bush blueberries, raspberries and six varieties of non-fussy, hardy roses grown by the Kings from roots, not grafts, they said.

The gardens have rows and rows of varieties of bearded iris, peony, azalea, shade and sun-loving perennials and more than 35 varieties of day lilies.

Most of the plants the Kings have propagated themselves. All are growing in their own compost/soil mix and each is proven to be hardy in the cold, western mountain winters.

They also grow a few hard-to-find lilac varieties, such as Glory and Annabelle, and ones that are challenging to propagate.

“Sometimes only two out of 15 will grow,” Mary Lou said. “The big commercial growers sell ones that are easy to propagate. My dream is to have beautiful species of lilacs that are rare because of unusual colors and that you can’t find anywhere else.”

David King, who works as a carpenter in Rangeley, works alongside his wife in the evenings and on weekends. Mary Lou now works at the nursery full time. Together, they own 150 acres, with about 1 acre cleared for their garden operation.

Twice they have expanded what once was a log yard, and they plan to slowly open up more land.

They are seeing a growing appreciation and demand for landscaping with hardy, native-grown plants that can survive rugged Maine winters. And they see an increase in customers willing to make the trip to their unlikely locale.

Most are from the Franklin County region, but plant lovers are making their way to Number Six Road from the coast and points across central and western Maine.

The Kings credit that to a growing word-of-mouth reputation, a presence on Facebook and until this year, to steady sales at the farmers market in Farmington.

In 1988, the couple moved to Phillips from Massachusetts. For six months of every year, they lived in an off-the-grid family camp that they slowly expanded, with David doing construction and Mary Lou working at odd jobs, she said.

“We thought about having a nursery right away but never thought we could make a go of it,” she said.

They planted their first lilacs in 1997, moved up permanently in 1999 and opened the nursery nine years ago.

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