Great Plains Lavender Growers Group

I don’t get to go on many road trips so I was excited to take a trip this weekend with my husband to Kansas to visit with other Lavender growers. I’m a founding member of the United States Lavender Growers Association (USLGA) and we’ve talked about forming ‘regional groups’ or ‘branches’ so growers can get some mentoring and advice from other growers geographically close to them. Hence, the USLGA Great Plains Lavender Growers Group was put together and met for the second time this weekend.

We met at Washington Creek Lavender, the farm of Jack and Kathy Wilson just south of Lawrence for an informal gathering and discussions on a variety of lavender related topics. Their farm is nestled in a beautiful hilly area of Kansas.  They put a good amount of space between their rows, something we may do on future plantings.

While driving there and back, my husband and I also stopped at two other farms; Morford Lavender Farm (Jim and Wanda Morford) in Kanopolis and Prairie Lavender Farm (Mike and Diane Neustrom) near Bennington.

Two farms represented Colorado; Trudy and Bob Perry from Heritage Lavender in Berthoud and myself, from Colorado Aromatics Herb Farm in Longmont. There were also people who came from Missouri, Iowa and Nebraska. 

Lavender growers are very willing to help each other and grow the industry together. Coming from very diverse backgrounds everyone brings something unique to the table. With such different problem solving skills get-togethers are lively and informative. We talked about how we each grow lavender, essential oils, distilling, varieties, agritourism, niches and more.

One fun thing we mentioned was having an I-70 lavender tour. How far would you travel to see various lavender farms?

Maybe next year we will host a lavender gathering at our farm.