SEQUIM — A dab of lavender oil on each temple erases a headache — “there’s nothing better,” said Keren Berry, a Lavender Festival-goer from Seattle.
So one may safely say, with the lavender fields flowering across the Sequim valley, that the people strolling the six farms on the 14th annual Lavender Festival tour are feeling light-headed.
In the best way.
The farms — Purple Haze, Jardin du Soleil, Olympic Lavender Farm, Cedarbrook Lavender & Herb Farm, Sunshine Herb & Lavender and Lost Mountain Lavender — are color-filled gathering places this weekend.
“Just being around it, honestly,” is the reason Erin Thomas and her husband Albert drove from Seattle to Purple Haze, the farm on Bell Bottom Road in eastern Sequim.
“There are people from all walks of life,” Thomas said, “all here for the same reason.”
She, like others wandering among rows of Royal Velvet, French, angustifolia and dozens of other lavender varieties, braved the traffic — reportedly backed up along U.S. Highway 101 — for that one thing: lavender’s beauty.
The purple plants offer another allure, though, which is a fragrance that stays in the memory.
Should you doubt this, a walk through the Street Fair is prescribed by the dozens of lavender growers there. Inhale, and hundreds upon hundreds of fresh bouquets provide a healthy dose.
The fair, with its 140 vendors and live jazz, folk, blues and bluegrass, is a multi-sensory dazzler with ice cream, fine art photographs, local wine, essential oils, orchids, skin-softening creams, Thai cuisine, even lavender-filled calming bandannas for dogs.
Then there’s the offshoot Fun on the Field at Fir Street and Second Avenue, where local nonprofits provide family activities.
Monica and Mike Pickley of Seattle made their first trip to the festival “to see,” Mike said, “what all the fuss is about.”
The Lavender Festival, in its 14th year, is known for attracting 30,000 people to Sequim over three July days.
And though you can visit a lavender farm — or six — on any summer weekend here, the festival brings together all of the special food and drink, art, activities and live music at the Street Fair and farms.
It’s like a progressive party, the Pickleys discovered.
“You go to one farm, and then you go to the next one,” Mike said after relinquishing a lavender Adirondack chair at Purple Haze.
At Jardin du Soleil north of town, children and grandparents picked their own bouquets, ran around the garden maze and meandered among the artisans’ booths.
And at the Street Fair on Saturday afternoon, families, couples and groups of friends lolled on the lawn and listened to Crescent Blue, a West End band specializing in bluegrass.
“It’s not hot; it’s just right,” said Robin Tice, who came from Olympia to have some Street Fair strawberry shortcake with her Sequim friend Judy Kimler.
________
Features Editor Diane Urbani de la Paz can be reached at 360-417-3550 or at diane.urbani@peninsuladailynews.com.
