EDITOR’S NOTE — This story has been corrected to reflect that Graysmarsh Farm is on the Sequim Lavender Festival’s Farms on Tour organized by the Sequim Lavender Growers Association. The farm is not a member of the growers association but is a sponsor and so is listed on the tour.
SEQUIM — Turn the corner, and there it is: a mass of purple, virtually glowing under the sun.
That’s the experience this valley offers: the herb at its fragrant peak, in shades light and deep, bees providing a faint hum across the field.
Mike and Julie Greenhaw are one of the valley’s lavender love stories. They found an old tree farm just west of Sequim in 2005, established 3,200 lavender plants there and have since grown Martha Lane Lavender, one of the farms on the free Lavender Growers Association tour.
The three-day Lavender Weekend starting today, Mike said, is “the fastest three days of my life,” with visitors to the field and the store, in the front room of the Greenhaw home.
“Julie and I meet people from all over the world. That’s one of the best attributes of having a lavender farm,” according to Mike, who heads the growers association.
Lavender Weekend has four major elements:
— The Lavender Farm Faire Heritage Farm Tour of six farms, each a festival of its own, with tickets at $15, $10 for active military and free for children 12 and younger;
10 a.m. to 6 p.m. today and Saturday, 10 a.m. to 5:30 p.m. Sunday.
— The Lavender Arts & Crafts Faire at Carrie Blake Park, free, 9 a.m. to 7 p.m. today and Saturday, 9 a.m. to 6 p.m. Sunday at 202 N. Blake Ave.
— The growers association’s Street Fair, free from 9 a.m. to 7 p.m. today and Saturday and from 9 a.m. to 6 p.m. Sunday, on Fir Street in downtown Sequim.
— The growers association’s Sequim Lavender Festival Farms on Tour, a free circuit that includes five farms and a nursery.
The first two events are presented by the Lavender Farmers Association, the group that separated from the growers association in 2011.
Mike Greenhaw believes in “moving on” from the divisions between the two groups.
“We’re not looking to get rich,” he added. “We just want to have fun.”
The same feeling is found on the other side of Sequim, where Jordan and Paul Schiefen are the relatively new owners of Jardin du Soleil Lavender.
They purchased the fields and farmhouse on Lavender Weekend 2011, and yes, “we’re talking to people from all over the world” daily, said Jordan.
Here are the locations on the Heritage Farm Tour; all have tour tickets for sale:
— Jardin du Soleil, 3932 Sequim-Dungeness Way.
— Lost Mountain Lavender, 1541 Taylor Cutoff Road.
— Olympic Lavender Farm, 1432 Marine Drive.
— Purple Haze, 180 Bell Bottom Road.
— Victor’s Lavender, 3743 Old Olympic Highway.
— Washington Lavender, 965 Finn Hall Road.
The Sequim Lavender Festival’s Farms on Tour circuit, meanwhile, includes these growers of lavender and other crops:
— Blackberry Forest, 136 Forest Road (off West Sequim Bay Road).
— Nelson’s Duckpond & Lavender, 73 Humble Hill Road (off Hooker Road).
— Martha Lane Lavender, 371 Martha Lane (off Kitchen-Dick Road).
— Oliver’s Lavender, 82 Cameron Acres Lane.
— The Lavender Connection, 1141 Cays Road.
— Peninsula Nurseries, 1060 Sequim-Dungeness Way.
— Graysmarsh Farm, 6187 Woodcock Road.
Sunshine Herb & Lavender Farm at 274154 U.S. Highway 101 is open to the public but is not listed on either association’s tour.
A free shuttle bus will circulate around Sequim to take passengers to and from downtown at Second Avenue and Washington Street, the QFC lot at 990 E. Washington St., the Arts & Crafts Faire at Carrie Blake Park, the Street Fair stop at Second Avenue and Alder Street, and the J.C. Penney lot at 651 W. Washington St.
The bus also will serve two other events: the Sunbonnet Sue Quilt Show and Driftwood Sculptors Art Show at Sequim Middle School, 301 W. Hendrickson Road, and the Sequim Farmers Market, which just changed its name from the Sequim Open Aire Market, on Saturday and Sunday only at Second Avenue and Cedar Street.
This year, there won’t be buses taking visitors to all farms on the Heritage Farm Tour. Just one shuttle, though, will transport people between the Arts & Crafts Faire in the park and Purple Haze farm on Bell Bottom Road.
For more information about lavender activities and attractions, visit http://tinyurl.com/lavenderweekend.
Features Editor Diane Urbani de la Paz can be reached at 360-452-2345, ext. 5062, or at diane.urbani@peninsuladailynews.com.
