A lush of lavender....

When you mention the word Provence, what is the first thing to pop into your head ? -  well to me Provence is all about firstly, acres of the most lovely fragrant lavender, secondly, the most delicious seafood, especially bouillabaisse and moules mariniere and lastly but not leastly the most wonderful warmth and ambience.


While on holiday in Provence earlier this year,  we had arrived on the 23rd of May, a time when the lavender is almost in bloom normally.

On one of our many days of ramblings in the area we came across these magnificent fields of lavender. Such a marvellous sight and we knew that the best was to come.....





This field was only about a good half hour walk from the campsite and so we got to see the changes to the crop as it ripened over the months we were there.

Quite an exciting time really for us and also for multitudes of tourists who swarm around in the area at this time of year .

The place was buzzing with amateur cameramen and women !!

One day while visiting the village across the valley - called  Bonnieux , we popped into the shop which specialised in all products relating to bees.


A sad fact we discovered while chatting to the wife of one of the largest honey producers in the area (he had over 200 hives scattered around in the valley) was that the lavender was actually 3 weeks late ripening and so the poor bees were dying from starvation.

A total disaster both for the poor bees and the future of honey industry in the area.

I felt like saying to her that maybe they should not have harvested quite so much of the honey last year which would have enabled the bees to better survive the problems caused by the colder than usual weather this year !!

but not being too sure of my facts I kept silent.....






We have been to Provence many times over the last few years but only learned this year that in fact there are two main types of lavender. The old original lavender and the more modern strain which is called lavandine.

The older strain is less easily harvested as it is a lot shorter stemmed and has many branches and only really thrives on higher ground.

The lavandine on the other hand thrives in the valley, has lovely long stems with only one head per stem so is easy
to harvest.



The lavandine has become the main crop in the area but really the perfume and oil produced from it is not of such good quality.


It is sadly now all about quantity and not quality as the demand is huge  and the temptation is to try and maximise the sales and production.





This is one of the farms we stopped by many times while travelling around the area - the one thing I can't show you here is how 'alive' the lavender was with various insects and butterflies. 


There was an absolute flutter of winged creatures and of course the whole field was a great hum of buzzing bees, incredibly loud !!

so much so it seemed to fill my head .....








One of the most surprising sights was the miles of piping and the automatic watering systems !!! All heavy duty stuff and all on a very industrial scale.


I always think of lavender as a plant that thrives in hot and dry conditions and so to see that it needed watering was very unexpected indeed.

I must say though that the watering was short and sharp - maybe they were just trying to speed up the ripening of the flowers ?








The lavender starting to deepen in colour as the time marched by and the month hotted up !!

I just loved the almost constant blue skies - so cheerful..















































I would absolutely love to live here - surrounded by vineyards, lavender and glorious countryside.

Also in the fields not in lavender or grape production were an abundance other vegetables and fruits. A bounty of edibles all around you..... wow ......

This is my very favourite photograph of the lavender fields and I fully intend to turn this into a pastel masterpiece one day !! such glorious colours .......