Lavender Fields Forever

It was a triple digit day; one of the many that we experienced last month. The setting was the Lavender Garden for the first Lavender Trail weekend of 2024. The area was all weeded and trimmed, and the pretty new ADA compliant sidewalks gleamed in the midday sun. Benches awaited those visitors who might choose to sit and listen to the droning hum of the busy bees while watching the purple and lavender spikes sway in the breeze. Canopies were raised, shading tables of delicious shortbread cookies, lemonade, cheese and chocolates, all flavored with our herb of the hour, Lavender!

Alas! Our highly prized and renowned Lavender Garden did not make it onto the Lavender Trail website or list because of a technicality that we are not a “Lavender Farm”.  The fact that we are located on a farm does not seem to count. And even though the Applegate Valley unfortunately had wildfires and smoke that weekend, we still did not get many visitors.

Margaret Clark, GEM of the Lavender Garden, did a remarkable job putting together all the edible goodies with pretty plates and tablecloths and was in the garden all three days with volunteers. Prior to that, Janine Salvatti, Chair of Gardens and Grounds and her work crews were out there three separate workdays and are to be commended for their hard work getting the garden ready for the public.

All is not lost, because at least we Master Gardeners can enjoy this beautiful Lavender Garden.  If you haven’t been out there this year, you should take the walk.  And now it’s time to harvest, so bring your clippers and take some heavenly Lavender home!  Margaret is out there every Wednesday to show you how.

I want to thank all the volunteers who came out to help. We will learn from this lesson.  We will try to convince the Trail people that we belong on the list, and we will do our own advertising to entice the crowds back to us next year. Do you have ideas to help with that? Contact Marcie Katz at marciek10@gmail.com, and let’s make our Lavender Garden the star of the show in 2025.  Here are some photos to show what they missed. See you in the Lavender!