This plant is the highlight of the year as far as I am concerned. It’s got colour, scent and chutzpah. It’s good for cooking, perfume, medicine, and an insect repellant. Bees and butterflies love it, and it makes my heart sing. It’s all downhill after the lavender finishes —I went a bit overboard when I visited these lavender fields two years ago, and now I have five varieties of lavender stoechasa lavender dentata (rather tender and temperamental with a rather exciting camphor scent. It isn’t in flower now, otherwise it would be in this post), a white lavender, a pink one (who knew?) and a lot of this English variety – probably Munstead.

I can’t be sure because I grew the first lot from seed, and I’ve been randomly propagating ever since.

These are pictures I took in Provence, at the market in Aix five years ago. We tried to follow the lavender trail in the Luberon, but got lost somehow and didn’t see a single stalk all day. I aspire to make lavender bags as beautiful as this!

The honey from those fields must be something really special!

This is the first lavender fom the garden this year. I’m  going to hang it in my study, to clear the air when I get bogged down in the poetry.