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Deborah Williamson (left) and her mother, Edie Williamson, own Seven Oaks Lavender Farm in Catlett.
Sachets filled with lavender are among the fragrant
A white cabbage butterfly feeds |
BY CATHY JETT
White cabbage butterflies flitted from bush to bush as Edith Williamson walked through rows of lavender at her Fauquier County farm.
The compact mounds of light purple spikes are 'Croxton's Wild,' she said, one of the first varieties to appear each summer at Seven Oaks Lavender Farm.
People who come there during June and July to pick bouquets of the fragrant flowers often dry the blossoms for use in baking or buy already dried lavender in tins at the farm's gift shop.
"We like 'Croxton' better than 'Provence' for cooking because it's sweeter," Williamson said.
Provence, with its gray-green foliage and blue-violet flowers, was just coming into bloom last Monday, as were other Virginia-hardy varieties such as 'Fred Boutin,' 'Hidcote,' 'Seal,' 'Twickle' and 'Grosso,' or "fat spike" as it's more commonly known.
"The rain held things back about a week," Williamson said.
She and her daughter, Deborah Williamson, who lives next door with her husband, Paul Johnson, and their 10-year-old son, Lincoln, have been in the lavender business for six years. They started out with 100 plants, and now have 500 arranged in neat rows on an acre plot in front of Edith and Glenn Williamson's gray Cape Cod with its wide, inviting front porch.
"A lot of people will come and say, 'Where are the fields of lavender?'" Edith Williamson said with a laugh. "This is it. We didn't have a market for more. Now that Debbie has gotten our lavender into Whole Foods, we plan to expand."
Seven Oaks is a world way from Provence, France, with its famous fields of lavender. But it is one of a handful of Virginia farms now raising the plant known for its calming scent and culinary appeal.
Most lavender farms in the United States are in Washington, California and Texas, Deborah Williamson said. On the East Coast there are a few in Pennsylvania and North Carolina, but Virginia appears to have the best climate and growing season.
"The winters in Pennsylvania are too cold, and the summers in North Carolina are too hot," she said. "We're perfect, but we can't compete with out west."
In some ways, growing lavender brings Deborah Williamson full circle.
She was born in Bordeaux, France, when her father was stationed at a military base near there, but grew up on a 20-acre farm near Catlett.
Williamson couldn't wait to trade the country for the city after she graduated from college. She spent 10 years working in the restaurant business in Norfolk, then moved to New York City, where she worked in marketing and development for a nonprofit school.
But her attitude toward living in the Big Apple changed after Lincoln was born.
"I couldn't imagine him not having the freedom to be outside as much as he wanted to," Williamson said.
She and her husband bought a farmhouse on 16 acres fronting Old Dumfries Road just a few months before the planes hit the World Trade Center. They also convinced her parents, who were thinking of downsizing, to buy 2 acres of the property and build a house there.
The idea of planting lavender in what had once been a hayfield on her parents' property has its roots in a trip Williamson and her sister, Diane W. Bignoli, took to France in 2000. They were charmed by the lavender products they found, but it took a suggestion from her hairdresser, whose boyfriend was an herbalist, for Williamson to look into the prospects for growing and selling it herself.
"I asked him which herb would make money, and he said either rosemary or lavender," she said. "I think a lavender farm is a little more intriguing than a rosemary farm."
Williamson researched other farms, even e-mailing Jeannie Ralston, author of "The Unlikely Lavender Queen: A Memoir of Unexpected Blossoming," for advice.
"She was a lot more business-minded than we are, and charged me for the advice, which came in the form of a big packet," Williamson said.
Over time, she and her mother have figured out that their niche is as a pick-your-own operation, although they employ people from Bridges, a day program for mentally and physically disabled adults in Warrenton, to help them cut and bundle some of the lavender stalks.
What isn't sold is dried on racks in Edith and Glenn Williamson's garage, and the buds go into a variety of sachets, sprays and other products. Besides the Whole Foods in Fairfax, they're sold in the farm's gift shop, online at sevenoakslavenderfarm .com and at farmers markets in Manassas, Nokesville and Warrenton.
The Williamsons also hold classes on weekends, including one on making lavender wands from 10:30 a.m. to 1 p.m. today. The fee is $15.
"A big attraction for us is that [growing lavender] is seasonal," said Williamson, who is working on a master's degree and may turn her farming experience into a book. "Mom and I have other interests, which this gives us time to pursue."
Cathy Jett: 540/374-5407
Email: cjett@freelancestar.com
| WHAT: Seven Oaks Lavender Farm WHERE: 8769 Old Dumfries Road, Catlett HOURS: Open to the public 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. Thursdays through Sundays through July 5, and at other times by appointment. INFO: The Williamsons can be reached at 540/788-4257. |
