We are so thrilled to be able to talk with this influential cut flower industry author. From her site we found that Debra Prinzing is a Seattle and Los Angeles-based writer who can credit her happy existence writing about gardens and home design to great preparation: a degree in textiles and design and a long career in journalism.
All we know is that Debra is passionate about flowers, growing & buying them locally, her books are both beautiful and entertaining. It was an honor to be included in her podcast series.
Probably the last thing you are thinking as you get ready for Thanksgiving is “Can I plant lavender in my garden now?” But, that is exactly the question a woman asked me two days ago when she stopped by the shop. It’s been freezing cold for more than a week here, which is rare for this time of year out here on Whidbey Island. In spite of that I told her that when it warms up (surely in a couple of days) she can plant her lavender. At least out here.
You are finally ready to put lavender into your garden – whether you are planning on putting them in the soil or in a pot on the deck. What you might want to think about before you come to the shop to get your lavender plants….
How much sun will your lavender get? Lavender likes at least 6 hours of sun a day. Sometimes people think that because there are a lot of cloudy days that their plants won’t get the sun they need. Those cloudy days aren’t the problem for lavender plants – it’s the trees and buildings that block the sun that can be the problem.
How well drained is your soil? Lavender likes “dry feet”, which means your lavender spot should never have puddles, even in the winter. If lavender stands in water it drowns. That’s true if you over water lavender, too.
How big do you want your lavender to be when it’s full grown? It takes lavender around three years to grow to its full size. Lavenders tend to be as wide as they are high, looking sort of like hedghogs, except prettier. Some lavenders grow only about 10 inches while others can grow up to 3 feet and many are varying sizes in-between. Also, think about whether you want them to be individual plants or whether you want them to look more like a hedge. That will determine how close together you plant one to the next.
What color and how long do you want the flowers and stems to be? Lavender flowers range from dark purple to white and lots of shakes of purple and pink between those two. They can have stems that are quite short, or ones that are more than 14″ long. The shorter stems will produce a more compact look, while the longer stemmed plants will give a wavy, moving in the wind sort of look.
When do you want them to bloom? Lavenders vary in the time of the summer that they bloom. Some bloom rather early, some quite late. If you have a lot of varieties, it’s like a blooming parade through the end of summer. You can plant all of one variety and have a big show at one point in the summer.
What do you want to do with the lavender? You can cook with some varieties, use some for dried flowers, use some for bulk lavender and make sachets. Unless you have a lot of plants, you probably won’t be able to make your own essential oil, but you can make lavender extract for cooking! There are some varieties of lavender you shouldn’t eat that are great for your garden, but not for your plate.
Now are you really confused? Don’t worry, we’ll help you when you come in.
We started a new tradition at Lavender Wind Farm. Once a month we all collaborate on a lunch menu. We invite one or two special guests to share this fabulous repast. In November we had an Indian menu – I never would have imagined that we’d have feasted as well as we did. You can have a look at the table. Then, if you are lucky, and local, you might get an invitation.
Staff Party – these folks know how to have a good time!
Even thought we stuffed ourselves, we still went out and worked after lunch. Nancy has transformed the greenhouse to a friendly and over-stuffed place. Full of repotted plants that are getting reestablished before they are put out to grow over the winter. Nancy is one of the staff who comes to work every day with a huge smile and keeps telling us she just loved the work. That is so nice.
Nancy potting lavender
The only problem is, that we have to accept the reality that we are a farm that, like the plants that grow in our fields, we need to sleep for a while in the winter. That’s hard on the employees because they get laid off until the income returns. The work is always there! I love the people who work here, they are the BEST!
I found out my little camera can take videos longer than 5 seconds (like my old one). It’s not Hollywood, but it’s useful to try to share some information that’s too hard to share with just words.
We often get questions on how to prune lavender plants. Anyone that sells lavender gets these questions and some people have done some videos – this is ours.
When you get a bunch of lavender growers in a room and ask them about distilling you get as many passionate descriptions about the only way to distill as you have people in the room. At the International Lavender Conference in Cambridge earlier this month there were people from world famous lavender farms as well as much smaller entities, like ours. Henry Head, from Norfolk Lavender, showed off his distilling system that has been in use since 1933.
For those who are debating the issue of whether copper or stainless is the best, the vats are lined with copper. They are clearly very old and well used after having distilled their world class oil for over 75 years. Hanging is a top to one of the pots and a pusher that compacts the lavender in the pot. To Henry’s left on the floor is the separator.
To get the lavender to the distilling room he showed us the harvester they have developed. The front part scoops up and cuts the lavender and it goes into the green bin behind. The unit is attached to a tractor, I believe, and harvesting goes quite quickly. Norfolk Lavender produces primarily an oil out of angustifolia lavenders, I don’t think they do much with the hybrids (lavandins), but if you know differently, please comment to correct.
From the end of June until sometime in October we are harvesting lavender. Different varieties bloom at different times, and we have over six varieties grown for commercial harvest. Here Leslie is harvesting our Provence lavender. We harvest by hand, using a Japanese sickle. We now use kevlar gloves to protect our workers hands and wrists – those sickles are incredibly sharp and can do severe damage.
The lavender is cut at the base of the flower stem, and then bundled with a rubber band. Each bunch is lain on the previously cut bushes until they are gathered up for hanging inside where it’s dark and there is warm, moving air to dry them out. If we have a period of rain, which is relatively rare in our area but this year we had a rainy end of August, the lavender simply dries much more slowly.
The smell of the lavender is so wonderful, and carrying in arm loads of bunched fresh lavender is a delight.
After the lavender is dried, we either use it on the stem or take it off to use as dried bud for sachets or cooking.
