Yesterday, we visited the Lavender Festival in Sequim, WA. Sequim calls itself the "Lavender Capital of North America"; situated in a valley at the foot of the Olympic mountains, it is sheltered from our Northwest rains and boasts a climate comparable to that of Provence. The festival features a giant street fair, quilt show, and tours of some of the local lavender farms.
I'm a sucker for festivals, but a flower festival? I had to go! Last year, I mentioned Lavender Hills Farm, which holds a wonderful annual festival virtually in our backyard. While Lavender Hills is well on-par with the farms on tour in Sequim, the Sequim festival is about twenty times larger and a hundred times more populous, and all of that extra space is cram-packed with activity and variety-- even the husband admitted he had a good time. Besides the usual lavender-product suspects, we were introduced to lavender dog bandanas, lavender salad dressing, and lavender margaritas. Even those die-hard grumps who weren't having a good time to begin with lightened up a couple of margaritas down the road!
For more information, see the Lavender Festival website, or check out my brand-spankin'-new Flickr photo gallery for more of my own photos of the event.
5 comments:
Sounds like a great time! I love your collection of photos! My favorite is the one of that dahlia...you have it entitled Pam Howden. The coloring is so rich and creamy! Take more pictures!!!!!
*miss ya!*
Pam Howden has been on my wishlist ever since I first laid eyes on it last summer... I can't believe how robust it is. There are already two more buds opening up, and tons more to come. That flower in the photo is at least six inches across.
If it divides well (knock on wood), I'll save a division for you in the spring!
Ah, that's sweet, but I'd probably kill the poor thing!!!!! ha ha ha
Thanks for the info on the hydrangea. Do you think roses planted to next to them and receiving rose food might affect the hydrangea? that is a gas exhaust vent pipe next to the one pictured. It is made out of cast iron. Hmmm...I need to do some research. Thanks again!
Did you try lavender ice cream this time???
You know, since your plant is still pretty small, the variation could just be a fluke. Our hydrangea is mostly purple, but always gets a few blue flowers on the late-season branches. I wouldn't worry about it too much, unless you really want one color over the other.
And yep, I had lavender ice cream! It was kind of disappointing, though... no one else wanted to try it, so I waited until the last moment, and all they had left was lavender ice cream sandwiched between lemon sugar cookies. The lemon sugar cookies were great! but they overpowered the ice cream to the point that you couldn't even taste the lavender. Luckily, the local festival also has lavender ice cream, so I'll just wait until next year. It'll give me an excuse to go again!
wow, a lavender margarita? sign me up! hee hee. the lavender dressing sounds interesting as well!
did i tell you i had lavender ice cream last year? it was pretty good. i had it in an ice cream pie! next year you'll have to make that your first stop. :)
loving your flickr photos! :)
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