You can’t have a lavender farm without first planting lavender plants! And boy, do we have a lot of them! Our goal is a total of approximately 15,000 plants by the time our fields are planted. Right now we have fifteen varieties of lavender here at the farm: French Fields, Irene Doyle, Twickle, Folgate, Betty’s Blue, Melissa, Silver Frost, Maillette, Royal Velvet, Impress Purple, Hidcote Giant, Provence, Seal, Super and Edelweiss. (If you look closely at the top heading of our website, you can see our varieties scrolling across the page.) The first nine in this list (French Fields through Royal Velvet) are Angustifolia or English lavender. They are what most people think of when they envision lavender – smaller in size, sweeter in fragrance. The last six of the list (Impress Purple through Edelweiss) are Intermedia or Hybrid lavender (English lavender crossed with French lavender.) They usually grow larger in size and produce more oil than English lavenders. There are hundreds of varieties of lavenders – it was very hard to narrow down our choices! We plan to utilize our varieties for different purposes, more of which we’ll describe later in this Products Series.
We will have fresh lavender bundles during lavender season (usually May through September.) Throughout the season, we will also dry some of our fresh lavender bundles to sell after the harvest is over and the fresh lavender has finished blooming for the season. Look for our lavender oils and other products at our booths as well, at the Placer County Farmers’ Markets at the Roseville Fountains on Tuesday mornings and at 150 Auburn Folsom Road in Auburn on Saturday mornings, and at Fowler’s Farmers’ Market at the corner of Highway 193 and Sierra College Boulevard in Lincoln on Sunday mornings.