“Lets go to that house, for the linen looks white and smells of lavender,

and I long to lie in a pair of sheets that smell so.”

—Izaak Walton, The Compleat Antler, 1653

It all started with the Tessa Evelegh’s book, Lavender.  Inspired by her photographs and ideas, we purchased ten three-inch plants and just stuck them into the ground.  Lavender was an easy answer to our drumlin garden.  The sandy, rocky soil is just like the Mediterranean coast, and what do you know, we’re on the ocean as well.  Our only soil conditioner is lime to overcome the devastation of acid rain, so each plant gets a cup of lime in the early spring.  Then the lavender grows and drops seeds.  And grows and drops seeds.  Six years later we have several hundred.  As noted on each Horticultural Fair tour of our garden, what does one do with so much lavender?

Let’s start with the fresh buds of lavender still in the fields.  When the sun is shining in late June, place your fresh linens across your lavender mounds.  As the florets swell to maturity, clip little bundles for delivery to friends.  For drying, hang other bundles upside down in a dry, still room like a garden house.  After a few weeks, bring your vibrant bundles in for colourful seasonal display in the kitchen, dining room, and mantle.  We fill large clear glass jars with evenly cut lavender, but any urn can be substituted.  Create a tableau on a table or above a cabinet by combining the lavender-filled jar with a pitcher (ours has a rooster on it) and a favourite-framed summer photograph of children.  For a more English look, my wife painted gold the handle and rim of her trug.  After covering the bottom of the trug with crumpled gift tissue, heaps of lavender bundles were placed to cascade over the edge.  Again we formed a tableau, this time on top of the armoire on our garden porch, setting the trug with a P’lovers birdhouse from long ago and a folk art sculpture of a lamb by Bill Roach of Cheticamp.  In preparation of a formal dinner, my wife layered smaller stems of dried lavender in a crystal bowl, creating a maze of colour and pattern as a table centrepiece.  Damaged stems are saved for another purpose.  My wife has an old purple and pink beribboned Easter basket for collecting dried lavender florets.  Make sachets for your linen drawers if you are so inclined.  Easier yet, fill old silver bowls and candy dishes with lavender buds and place them in guest rooms and around your home.               

Imagine, all of these ideas before the buds have even opened.  Of course once the lavender blooms, it’s too late.  Just enjoy the harvest in your garden and let the seeds fall for next year’s crop.  Transplant this year’s seedlings in the fall into a sunny bed of sandy, rocky soil, and don’t forget the lime.   

Too bad we were away this year during the peak of our lavender.  We missed the prime time for harvest, and the wet weather diminished the flower very quickly.  Whitford Farms had a good early season, though.  If you missed their lavender field during the Chester Garden Tour, you can always view their lavender products at Linens for Life or the Teazer.  Izaak Walton would have been pleased.