The 15th annual Colorado Lavender Festival is fast approaching! This year’s treat for the senses will be held from June 26th to June 28th. Friday, June 26th is the VIP farm tours, Saturday, June 27th is the main festival in Riverbend Park, and Sunday, June 28th is the day for self-guided farm tours.
Today, Olivia Coe and Lee Ann Nielsen join me to preview what’s planned for the festival this year. We also chat about why Colorado has the perfect climate to grow lavender and how you could even become a lavender grower yourself!
You can find the full festival schedule and get your discounted tickets in advance at https://coloradolavender.org/annual-lavender-festival/, or just head down to the park and get your tickets at the door on Saturday the 27th.
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Transcript:
Welcome to the Postcards From Palisade Podcast. I’m Lisa McNamara.
The 15th annual Colorado Lavender Festival is fast approaching! This year’s treat for the senses will be held from June 26th to June 28th. Friday, June 26th is the VIP farm tours, Saturday, June 27th is the main festival in Riverbend Park, and Sunday, June 28th is the day for self-guided farm tours.
Today, Olivia Coe and Lee Ann Nielsen join me to preview what’s planned for the festival this year. We also chat about why Colorado has the perfect climate to grow lavender and how you could even become a lavender grower yourself!
You can find the full festival schedule and get your discounted tickets in advance at https://coloradolavender.org/annual-lavender-festival/, or just head down to the park and get your tickets at the door on Saturday the 27th.
Join us to hear all about this fun festival and amazing plant on today’s Postcard From Palisade.
Olivia: Hello. My name is Olivia Coe. I am the director of the Colorado Lavender Festival. This is my fourth year, and I’m super excited to present this 15th anniversary of our festival. So thank you.
Lee Ann: Hi and I’m Lee Ann Nielsen. I’m the treasurer of the Lavender Association of Colorado. And I’ve been involved, gosh, for many, many years. So. It’s old hat for me, I guess.
Lisa: So tell me about the festival this year. What’s planned for this year? What can, what can people expect to see?
Olivia: Yeah, well, we’re going to have a lot of fun! As in prior years, the schedule is fairly similar. You know, our big event is Saturday. It’s June 27th, 9:00am to 4:00pm. We start the day off with all the vendors, and then they’re going to be there from open to close. So you can count, on minimum 60, I think 62 vendors roughly. And then we also have some sponsors, close to like maybe eight to ten sponsors. So looking at about 70 booths, with handmade products, services, food trucks, things like that. So it’s just a big fun event. We have three different musicians playing over that course of the day. So the first, the two musicians that are playing at the event are going to be the Bell Creek Band, which will be the first one. Fun, kind of, yeah, rock, jazzy sort of group in the morning and then in the afternoon it’s Sierra Budge, kind of more folksy, bluegrassy kind of stuff.
So that’ll be going on throughout the day and then in the evening after the big festival, we have our gourmet dinner which takes place at Maison La Belle Vie. We just went to that lovely event from the Chamber this morning, your community over coffee. So at Maison La Belle, as they do every time, they are a class act and they make delicious food and they’ve really honed their lavender culinary skills and so everything should be just right. You should get enough lavender, not too much, not too little in each bite. And it’s a delicious four course meal. Wine pairings with each one. Ah, so then at that one we’ll have Eric Mocko playing, and he’s a newer solo musician, but he does a lot of alternative, and like light rock kind of stuff. So it’ll be mellow and still nice.
So that’s, that’s the big day, before the festival, which actually I think we’re almost sold out. On Friday we have our private VIP tours, the farm tours. And that’s going to be so fun. Lee Ann’s participating this year [LM note: her farm is A Pinch of Lavender]. That’s a really beautiful, intimate event that happens with each of our farms in the area. Not every single one, but we have three farms and one winery that’s participating. And each participant gets to go and meet the farmer themselves, talk to them about their operation and how they grow lavender. They learn a bunch about why lavender does so well in this area, why it’s tricky sometimes, how it can be applied in all different ways. And then they also have a little food kind of at each spot, a nice little snack. And then there will be drinks included at Talon Winery. So they have their lavender wine and mead, which is delicious. So that’ll be the second stop. And then we’ll have, ah, we’ll finish out at Highlands Distillery and Belli Fiori Farm. Middle of the day you’re gonna have. They have lunch at Sprigs and Sprouts. So really beautiful event. Those farms are closed during the day and it’s just for those private events at the time.
Lisa: So is this the kind of situation where it’s like a full day thing where you go to each of these places? It’s a whole guided day.
Olivia: Yeah. Progressive.
Lisa: That’s so cool. Okay. I’ve never done it obviously.
Olivia: Yeah. And then we have a. You should definitely. There’s a couple tickets left if you want to get on, but, there’s a pilot car that drives you to kind of each location and a volunteer that will do that. Yeah, and it’s just, it’s a lovely, like I said, like, really intimate event where you get to know the person who’s making the products, then you get to go buy the products at the festival as well as you get some deals during the event from their stores too.
Lee Ann: I think it’s helpful because you get like an insider’s viewpoint about lavender itself and about what they have done with lavender. Because it’s such a broad range plant. I mean, our byline is one plant, endless possibilities. And we just. There’s just so many things that you can do with it. So this gives them just kind of an inside, not the secrets, I guess.
Olivia: A glimpse.
Lee Ann: Just a private, this has been their focus. Yeah.
Olivia: Yeah, it’s really beautiful. Then on Sunday after the big festival, we also have the open farm tours. And those are super cool because, that’s every lavender farm in the valley does something like a special event. So we’ll have that posted in online as well as in our program of each of the locations and like a little map that shows you where they’re located. And that is also a really great experience because there’s no cover fee to get in in most places, or there may be like a small fee. Yeah. But generally it’s. That also gives you the opportunity to get really involved with the lavender and see how each, like you said, each person does it differently. It also increases the business for these farms and helps them stay vital and keeps them operating in the community. So. Yeah, that’s kind of the big stuff we do. The fun stuff.
Lisa: Sounds wonderful. Is there anything different this year that’s different from years past?
Olivia: I would say. Well, actually, so we’ve had, we’ve pared back a little bit on some things. Like we used to have a North Fork Valley farm tour, the private one. But they have a couple of fewer farmers this year participating and so they weren’t able to host that. So that’s unfortunate. But that’s why I think the Sunday farm tours are great because I think they’re still doing their own open farm tours. They’re just not having the private one beforehand. So definitely, if you’re in the North Fork Valley area, make sure you get to those farms out there. But a lot of those farmers will be up here during the festival as well if you aren’t going down that direction.
And then we do have a couple of different like, classes that we’re offering. We have done painting. I don’t think we did painting the two years ago when you and I had talked. But we have a painting class on Sunday as well. So the open farm tours that take place, Belli Fiori is going to be hosting open farm tour as well as a private painting class. So you’ll paint a lavender painting. You’ll get a glass of something, a cocktail of some sort from Highlands Distillery. They’ll have special lavender inspired cocktails. And then you’ll have like, treats and things like that. I think that go with the event. So that’s a cool little opportunity as well to kind of do a different perspective on lavender. So that’s another exciting event that comes up.
And then, we’re also doing one that we’ve never done before. We thought it could appeal to the, you know, more ethereal crowd out there. But we’re doing crystal car diffusers as one of our art classes during the festival. So it’ll be a diffuser where you can, you know, drop in the essential oils and it’ll have a crystal and it’ll hang down in your car. So it’s just kind of another fun little activity to do.
Lisa: Yeah, that’s cool, if you feel like making something yourself.
Olivia: Yeah, yeah. And then I think another thing that we are doing this year, we’ve created like a slideshow. One of our board members has done that. And so that’ll kind of be playing at the register or at the LAC tent. The association has a tent where we sell kind of our own goods and things like that right when you come into the festival entry. And so that’ll be like the History of Lavender slideshow playing in the background so people can come and just hang out and watch that. I think it’s about 10 minutes. It’s something short. Yeah.
Lee Ann: Eight to 10, something like that. It’s not very long.
Olivia: Yeah.
Lee Ann: And it’s narrated so you can read along.
Olivia: Yeah. Or listen if you can’t read. And then we also will have our president doing the History of Lavender talk at the beginning of the festival. So that’ll be really nice. He’s from Cortez. And he’s really great, awesome, high energy guy. So, definitely don’t miss that talk. But yeah, just kind of trying to make sure that we’re maintaining a lot of what we’ve done in the past, but doing it right, you know, and not trying to do more than we have capacity to do. So I think really kind of scaling back a little bit to make sure we have our feet under us the right way.
Lisa: That makes sense. That’s always a good thing.
Olivia: Yes, for sure.
Lisa: Now I know you mentioned earlier a little bit about ticket sales this year. I thought that was really interesting. And one of the things I think is really nice is the general admission tickets for the festival on Saturday are really reasonable. They’re like $7 in advance, $10 at the door. What do the ticket proceeds go to support?
Olivia: So the festival itself, we have a good number of expenses. We have to pay for all the service providers and things like that. And we pay a fee to use the park and all those things. So in general, the fee goes to the association to continue the festival in general. And then any over and above the expenses of the festival would just go into continued operations basically for the festival.
Lee Ann: If there’s anything.
Olivia: If there’s anything.
Lee Ann: I mean, we aim to break even because this just meets our educational focus to the public.
Olivia: Exactly.
Lee Ann: So if we can cover all of our expenses, if we have a few dollars left over, then, yay. But otherwise it just helps us to fund the festival, make sure we pay for the rentals of everything that we have to have there and try to make it a nice experience for the patrons when they do show up. So. But it also gives them, the ticket itself gives them of course access to all the vendors, that we hope that they take part in. And then the seminars that we provide for in the seminar tent, which some are, I mean we generally try to do a cooking with lavender, that’s been kind of a mainstay so that people know that yes, you can cook with lavender. And then we’ll have the talk about the history of lavender. And I’m excited to hear that one too myself. I think he going to touch on like way back history and how it made it to Colorado type of thing.
Lisa: Yeah, that would be really interesting. What I’m so curious about is who first looked at it and was like, I should eat that.
Olivia: I know it’s a pretty purple flower yum, right?
Lisa: Yeah, this tastes delicious, right?
Lee Ann: Actually that was, way back in ancient times, it was a culinary item. And I don’t remember, I keep forgetting to refresh my memory and look it up. But there was a particular queen in the Great Britain area who that was all she allowed on her table was lavender adornment as well as compotes and jams and foods. And I mean they were obsessed with eating lavender. And then I think it fell by the wayside when the whole commercial products of adding it to bath and body stuff, I think. And then culinary got a bad rap because they said, oh no, it tastes like soap. And then it’s making a resurgence again. My focus has been culinary since I started and I can say probably the mid teens, 2000 teens is when people really starting to appreciate it again and really get into it.
Olivia: Yeah. It’s not. It’s in no little part to what LAC has been doing, I think, in the state. You know, they’ve been trying to promote lavender as a cash crop in Colorado, for, since 2009. And so I’m sure that, you know, even though you can’t exactly quantitatively attribute what LAC is doing to that resurgence, I feel like you can see it in the way that people are coming to the festival, the excitement of people wanting to eat lavender at our events.
Lee Ann: Oh and we have lavender lovers that specifically come for the festival, they’re hounding us. Email when are the tickets when are the tickets. Oh, yeah, we’re getting there. We’re getting there. The planning takes a little bit of work, but we’re getting there.
Olivia: Exactly.
Lee Ann: And now everything’s ready. So now, yeah, tickets are available. All kinds of, yeah, good things to work on.
Olivia: Yeah. And they’re selling pretty well this year, too. I’m pretty excited. We’ve already sold almost I think, like, 30 dinner, tickets, which is way ahead of last year. So it’s going to be a nice, busy dinner. I’m excited about that. And yeah, I just feel like it’s a shame if people don’t get to the dinner because of how delicious it is. So, yeah, so it’s, it’s, I think it’s. This year has been going pretty well, if I have any wood to knock on. But, yeah, I, I, and I do think that for me, when it comes to, like, you know, the financial side of things, I just think it is super important that everybody understands that, like, our job, our goal is to educate people about lavender in the region, in Colorado, all over. And that we want to be promoting people learning more about lavender and getting involved, growing lavender themselves, things like that, because it’s such a unique crop that is, it is so perfect for this region.
Lee Ann: It really is.
Olivia: And, the more people that are interested in it, the more likelihood there is that there will be more farmers coming around and keeping it alive.
Lisa: Okay. It’s the Colorado Lavender Festival. It’s not the Palisade Lavender Festival. It’s the Colorado Lavender Festival. Just happens to be held in Palisade. But what I don’t think we talked about, you know, because lavender grown across the entire state. I don’t think we talked about last time why the festival is in Palisade. So why is it here versus anywhere?
Lee Ann: It started here in the very beginning. We had a couple of visionaries that knew that lavender could do well in this region because we’re hot in the summer, it’s dry, and we’re cool in the evenings, much like the vineyards. You know, they grew up knowing the same climate aspect was very good for grapevines. And so we had. There was a couple. Couple of people I can mention, if you want.
Lisa: Yeah, sure!
Lee Ann: Dr. Curtis Swift. He worked for the CSU extension here in Grand Junction. And Kathy Kimbrough was a master gardener. Well, she probably still is. But the two worked together closely and with all of their contacts and friends that they had, got this, I guess researched and figured out and said, yeah, this is extremely doable. And so they launched the association in 2009. So, you know, there was planning and growing happening before that, but, the association got started in 2009, but it was here in the Western Slope. It’s where it got started because that’s where those two people were.
Olivia: It was called the Lavender Association of Western Colorado initially, right?
Lee Ann: At the time. It was, yeah, because we started on the Western Slope, so. And Western Slope likes to have a little bit of ownership anyway. So they promoted it for Western Colorado. And then in 11. So two years later is when they did the first festival and then it just went annually after that and have grown. And it wasn’t just a few years after that, really. It was by 2019, I think it is. We changed our name because we knew there were lavender farms on the Front Range and Colorado is an entire state. So we wanted to broaden the whole thing and go statewide. And changed our name to the Lavender Association of Colorado. So that’s why the inception of everything occurred on the Western Slope. But it is now. So traditionally, I guess, we’ve stayed in Palisade because that’s where it kind of has grown up, and it’s maybe tradition as well as, tradition. It’s kind of where it’s been. It’s just been. Palisade has a good festival footprint that people recognize. So, we have just kept it in that fashion.
Olivia: And proximity to other lavender farms, there’s a lot of, there’s a huge concentration.
Lee Ann: We do have that, we have. They’re drive-able to each other.
Olivia: Yeah.
Lee Ann: Where on the Front Range, they’re not that close together. So it’s such a huge expanse. I mean, from Fort Collins down, north of Fort Collins down to Pueblo and even one out on the plains, it’s like. Yeah, you just can’t drive to them in a daily. In a daytime trip, you can’t hit several. Where we do still have that capability on the Western Slope, between the Grand Valley and the North Fork Valley. Southwest corner has a number of them down there, but they’re not quite as close in proximity as we are here. It’s not like you can go, like, in North Fork, you can go to one location. You can hit about, I don’t know, four, five, three to five farms there in a day. If you didn’t mind doing a little bit of traveling. I’m not sure even in Southwest corner you could do that. I mean, there’s quite a number down there, but they’re just, you know, driving from Bayfield to Durango to Ignatio. You know, there’s just. They’re just in each of the little towns down there.
Olivia: And the Grand Valley is. it is perfect for growing. We just know that across the board. So that does make it like you said. I mean, lavender farms are across the highway from each other here.
Lee Ann: Yeah. That’s how close we are.
Lisa: How many do we have here in the Grand Valley? How many lavender farms?
Lee Ann: Oh, gosh, on the Grand Valley?
Olivia: I would say dozens, maybe. Like, if not a dozen.
Lee Ann: Maybe upwards of that much. I meant to bring my map. I know we’re only verbal, not visual, but I was gonna bring my map and I forgot.
Olivia: But I think at least I could say I could probably pin down at least a dozen people that have, you know, 50 plus plants. I would say.
Lee Ann: Oh, yeah, at least.
Olivia: Easily yeah. And that’s like a real farm.
Lee Ann: Well. And, yeah, I mean, granted, it. It’s just not that many of us are open to the public.
Olivia: Yeah.
Lee Ann: So there’s. There’s many that are growing it and produce their own items, but they’re not necessarily open to the public.
Lisa: Sure.
Olivia: And I would say, too, for why we’re still in Palisade, the town of Palisade, you know, it is, like, ideal for festivals, like you said. But I know that we are officially considered an anchor event. And so they’ve really just in my four years of working here, they’ve really, I think, met us halfway, I would say, and really come to the table for us to make sure that we can still afford to be here as an association that isn’t a huge moneymaker. But we do increase tourism for them and I think it’s a mutually beneficial relationship. So as long as we can maintain that positive relationship, I think it makes sense for us to be in the area, helping each other out, you know. But, it’s a great accolade to be called an anchor event, you know.
Lee Ann: That is very cool. That is very cool.
Olivia: Yeah.
Lisa: So of course, we know too, this, we all know this is a challenging year for growing things, a little bit. Every year has its own challenges, I’m sure, that are unique. But, one of the things that I thought was a little ironic was I looked back at our notes from last time and two years ago it was that cool, wet year where, the lavender wasn’t. You know, there’s some stress that it was behind schedule, it wasn’t going to be ready for the festival. I know this year is different.
Lee Ann: It’s ahead this year.
Lisa: Yeah. What does it look like this year?
Lee Ann: We had such a warm winter here that, some areas are ahead by two plus weeks. And then fortunately, lavender is an extremely drought tolerant plant, so we’re gonna probably face the summer fine. You know, with all the drought issues that are. That we’re dealing with. But I, I think lavender is just a little bit of it ahead this year in this area.
Lisa: Right.
Lee Ann: So and each area’s a little bit different. I know the Front Range, they got hit with some terrific snow and some cold weather, so. And that’s going to slow things down a little bit. Whether it’s harmed their plants, I’ve not talked to anybody to know for sure. I kind of doubt it because lavender is extremely resilient, also. And that’s that’s one of the beauties of it. Now in, we probably when we were here last time. We were, that was our third year past the terrible fall freeze we had of 2020. So that’s why we were finally breathing a sigh of relief a couple years ago that things were going to start looking good again. So I think we’ve done well last couple of years. Now we’re just status quo at this point, other than I think we’re a little bit ahead.
Lisa: So cold is worse than heat when it comes to lavender. Would that be a fair statement?
Lee Ann: It can be, certain plants. The two main plants that we grow in the region are angustifolias, lavender angustifolia, which is true lavender, or the one that’s culinary capable, in most cases. And then the second, variety is the x intermedia, which is commonly called lavandin. And those, for the most part, are cold hardy also, although they can be a little more susceptible to some of the cold factors. Kind of depending. I know for six years ago, it wiped out a lot of the lavandins in the area, where the angustifolias hang in there and they’re a little bit more cold hardy. And even though it hurt them and they died back, they can come back from their roots a lot easier, a lot more efficiently, I guess. So in one way I’m going to say cold is hard for them. It’s not like you cover them or you have to mulch them or you don’t have to do anything to them in the wintertime. I mean, they’re a perennial. They go dormant and then they’ll just come back in the springtime.
Olivia: Another reason why lavender is an amazing cash crop in Colorado.
Lee Ann: It is, it is. It really is.
Olivia: It’s perfect.
Lee Ann: Yeah. You know, you read on Facebook about other regions in the country, and some of them deal with terrific. I mean, they have a high rain involvement anyway. Their rain climate is much greater than ours, and if it’s too great, it’s very harmful for the lavenders. So, I always commiserate with them. It’s like, oh, my gosh, you guys, that’s. I’m sorry for you. You should be in Colorado!
Olivia: With our 300 days of sun a year.
Lee Ann: Yeah, just about. Yeah. That’s so true. No, lavender, it wants the sunshine. It wants the sunshine. Minimum of 6 hours and very little water. Very. Don’t plant it next to your grass because grass needs more water than lavender does.
Lisa: So how did lavender get to Colorado? Is that something you’ve got a little background in?
Lee Ann: I don’t have anything significant other than I mentioned with Dr. Swift and Kathy in the beginning, when they got to looking at what is something that we can bring that could be a cash crop other than the fruit trees, the stone fruits, and the vegetable gardens, you know, because we have amazing amount of vegetable growers and such, so what else can we do? And I think that just their involvement in agriculture is what probably spearheaded this the most to get it to Colorado and then from there. And they were hard workers. I mean, them, and the team they and the team they had working on this. Hard, hard workers, getting this thing going and growing. And that’s been many years ago. A lot of them have retired and gone on to other things. So it’s like, we need some new lavender growers. It is so easy once you get it established. It’s so easy.
Lisa: I’m just wondering, too, you know, coming from kind of Mediterranean area, we do have a pretty similar climate.
Lee Ann: Yes.
Lisa: So I think that, too, is, you know, I know enough about the history of wine and grapes to be dangerous. But a lot of that was, you know, people immigrated to a new area and they’re like, oh, hey, this looks like where I came from and where I came from, we could grow this thing. So I’m going to try here.
Lee Ann: You know, I think lavender was in other parts of the country, up in Washington, in Sequim, kind of northwest island of state of Washington has probably, to my knowledge, the longest growing area in our country that I’m aware of. There may be many others elsewhere. And I know a lot of people, and I believe even Kathy, went up there and talking with them and learning about it. And that’s where a lot of people get their stimuluses, because they have the ability to have the huge fields that you envision in a, you know, in a photo.
Lisa: Yeah, like that screen saver that was on Windows for a while.
Olivia: The lavender porn. Yeah.
Lee Ann: Yeah. Just about. So they have. They have huge, huge farms in that area, but I mean, it’s just darn near. And the only place I think might not grow it in this country is Florida, maybe. Maybe. Well, because of the humidity and the high water table they have and that kind of thing, I’d heard in conferences in the past, they said Georgia should not be growing lavender. But they do. They do. They do. Well, yeah, it’s in New York. You know, it’s just everywhere, all over the country. So.
Olivia: And I guess I would encourage you to come to Jeremy’s talk. He’s our president. He’s the one doing the first talk at the festival to hear the real kind of. I think he’s researching a lot about the long term history of lavender. So make sure to come to the festival and you’ll hear all about it.
Lisa: So, what would it take, say, if somebody, somebody wanted to start a lavender farm? What would it take? Like how you mentioned, you know, Washington has huge fields. I know here we have pretty good sized fields, but we don’t have acres upon acres. So like, what’s a viable, you know, if somebody listens to this and they’re like, oh, maybe that would be interesting to me.
Lee Ann: You know, a lot of people plant it just in their landscape, you know, and they might have 15 to 30 plants in the landscape. And it doesn’t matter because it’ll do well. I think the biggest thing to do is to learn a little bit about lavender and the two most common types, the angustifolia and the lavandins that we see in our area. Research a little bit from, you know, websites or whatever, do your Google searching and determine which one you think you might want with what its capabilities are.
Your lavandins, you can eat them, but they won’t hurt you, they’re just not going to taste as good. There’s a couple, there’s a couple that can be fine. Yeah, there’s a couple. And if you use a lot less of it, I mean, really less, then yeah, you can do just fine with it. It just. Those have a higher camphor content. Kind of like that mentholatum thing. Yeah. So it just doesn’t have that nice of a taste, but it has the other value where if you wanted to get into the distilling side of things, it’s the high oil producer as compared to angustifolias. So because those are, I mean they’re just known for being the low oil producers, the higher.
Well, and there could be arguments on who has the highest quality between angustifolia and lavandins. Just depends on what you want to do with it. And that’s kind of the thing. And that’s where I got, when I got started in 2011, I didn’t really like lavender, and my husband said, this is going to be a good thing. We can make money on this. Wait a minute. But in researching, that’s how I learned that there is a difference of what grows in this area and then what their capabilities are. And of course, I opted to grow culinary, the angustifolias, because I thought, you can eat this? Okay, we’re gonna figure that part out. And, so it kind of just depends on what you want to do with it.
Lisa: And I’m sure, is the Lavender Association of Colorado a resource, too?
Olivia: Oh, yeah. I was just about to say that. The first thing you do is join the Lavender Association of Colorado. You become a member, and they have educational opportunities regularly, at least quarterly, if not even more often. Yeah. And it’s the. The festival is really just to, for people to dip their toes in, or just come and buy products as they’re not going to become growers. If you join the Lavender Association as a member, you’re automatically included in all of those, trainings. The educational opportunities.
Lee Ann: We do a lot of online stuff. Because of being statewide, we want to reach everybody.
Olivia: Yeah. So first things first. Do that.
Lee Ann: Yeah, good plug. And there is a lot of educational stuff just to look at. Say, do I want to. How do I do that? You know that we have different opportunities available just for someone who’s kind of thinking about it.
Olivia: Yeah. And then I think too, I’ve seen you guys, as an organization, somewhat mentor people, too, you know, so if somebody’s interested, you all have been resources for them as well, just to ask questions and provide support. They’re very approachable as an association. So, you know, you won’t be, you know, on an island out there by yourself.
Lee Ann: Oh, no, no. That’s one of the other reasons we got into it, is because they were so gracious, so wanting to share. You know, they loved what they were doing, they loved lavender, and the enthusiasm just is contagious. And that’s what makes it really nice.
Lisa: Yeah, that is nice. It’s more of a community/cooperative effort versus competitive.
Lee Ann: Well, it is. And on our website, we have a member, map, member directory and a map. And you have the ability to search for farms that are closest to where you live. Or maybe you want to find out, I don’t know, you’re more into making teas and you want to put lavender in your teas. You know, we have some resources available, searchable for you on the map. Then you can call up those people that are closest to you and do your own site visits. Do your own checking on resources and information and so, yeah.
Olivia: Yeah. Well, I feel like, you know, utilizing Google and searching is totally valid. But I, I found definitely in working with lavender growers, you know, is that that person to person interaction really makes a huge difference.
Lee Ann: Oh it makes a huge difference.
Olivia: And it’s. I feel like you’ll just get stuck, stuck kind of in a rut if you’re just looking, searching on your own, like making. Exactly. Making those connections with those individuals who have experience. I think it’s just a next level opportunity for anyone that’s interested in growing.
Lee Ann: And I think that’s the other beauty of lavender is we want other lavender growers to succeed.
Olivia: Yeah.
Lee Ann: So. And especially the ones in Colorado because we’re the Lavender Association of Colorado. We want to promote Colorado.
Lisa: So do you ever have any regrets for getting into lavender growing if you weren’t originally interested?
Lee Ann: I can certainly address that. I came from a vineyard, doing a vineyard by myself, just three acres. I had a very small vineyard. It was about 3,000 plants, and I couldn’t do it. It is very labor and time intensive and learning about lavender was like, wait a minute, I can do this and I don’t need help that often. I can ask for help once in a while. Now, it depends on the scale you want to go to. I didn’t do 3,000 plants. I only did 500. A little more than 500, but we’re right at about 500 now. And yeah, one person can do that, on your own. It just does not require the intensity of care and attention like vineyards do.
Lisa: Sure.
Olivia: So you’re saying no regrets.
Lee Ann: So I’m saying no regrets! No. I’ll do lavender over vineyard any day.
Lisa: Okay, good. Just curious.
Olivia: It seems like there’s very few downsides to it, like, other than just having to know when to water and when not to water. Like, I feel like it’s, it’s a super simple plant and I, you know, I don’t, I don’t own my home or else I’d be growing a bunch of lavender myself, I think.
Lee Ann: And that’s, that’s the beauty of the plant. It’s just, it’s so. It grows in lousy, lousy soil. You know, as long as it’s got its sunlight and once in a while a little moisture. Yeah, it doesn’t really need fertilizer. It doesn’t need, it doesn’t have much pests.
Olivia: It repels the bad ones. Pretty much.
Lee Ann: Pretty much does, yeah. If you try to search for, you know, what will keep mosquitoes away. Lavender is one of the first things that’ll come up. People that are in mountainous areas, sometimes the deer and mountain creatures will go after the younger plants, and more because they want to see what it is by them testing it out, it might rip it out of the ground, but generally it repels deer as well. So.
Olivia: Once it’s established.
Lee Ann: Yeah. Yeah. It’s a pretty, pretty cool little plant to grow.
Olivia: Yeah.
Lee Ann: Or a big one.
Olivia: Depending how far you go with it.
Lee Ann: Yeah, some of them can get to six feet across. So. Yeah. You have to decide how big of a space you have.
Olivia: Yeah.
Lee Ann: What do you want to do with it?
Olivia: There’s one thing I do want to mention. And this was a couple of months ago that we actually got the accolade. But we are in the top 10 best flower festivals for USA Today. So we were approached by them that we were nominated to be on the list. And there’s about 150 flower festivals in the U.S. And we are in the top 10. So.
Lee Ann: Yeah, it was pretty cool.
Lisa: It’s a good validation of your work.
Lee Ann: And then right, right after that they did the best small town you know, in the country. And turns out it’s Palisade.
Olivia: So we are doing something right.
Lee Ann: Lavender and Palisade. We’re good.
Olivia: I feel like again that proves the symbiosis where, you know, we’re doing good, they’re doing good. Let’s keep it up. I just think, it’s going to be a really great year. Working with the town of Palisade has been really simple this year. And again we have all of our kind of ducks in a row. And it, I feel like it’s just going to be a nice smooth year hopefully. So we’re gonna, you know, like pray and everything, there will always be something. But I know that we’re gonna, you know, we’re gonna come to the table with the best that we can offer, so.
Lisa: Looking forward to it. And I appreciate you guys coming in and talking to me.
Olivia: Our pleasure.
Lee Ann: Well, it’s fun. Yeah. I’m glad you. Glad you suggested it again.
Lisa: You know what I think is interesting seeing you both now is you both are. You seem a lot calmer than two years ago, which is cool to see. Not that you were, like, frazzled or whatever, but you seem very calm.
Olivia: Yeah.
Lisa: So what’s kind of changed in the last two years that you are kind of feeling good this year?
Olivia: Well, I feel like, I trust myself and I think Lee Ann trusts me now. It’s been like I said, four years going and we’ve worked out a lot of the kinks over that time. So we’ve, we both are just, I think, pretty. Feeling pretty solid and we know what needs to happen kind of from the get go. So I know that me and Lee Ann are like besties when it comes to Lavender Association, even if she doesn’t want to be.
Lee Ann: Yeah. For the whole festival planning and everything.
Olivia: Yeah.
Lee Ann: I’ve been involved as long, I guess, longer than you.
Olivia: Oh yeah.
Lee Ann: In the planning with the festival. So I think that’s been the biggest difference is we’ve had some longevity with the festival director. And that’s been extremely helpful. And then she keeps learning every year.
Lisa: And you also have someone helping you too, right this time around? I don’t think you had that two years ago.
Olivia: The assistant director position has been impossible to fill long term, so it’s you know, what we have now is an intern. Her name’s Kai. She’s from the Palisade School. She did graduate this year and so she’s heading off to college. But she’ll be, she wanted to learn about nonprofits. She’s not necessarily like obsessed with lavender like some of us are, but more so just the opportunity to understand how, you know, fundraising works and how you make connections and network and, you know, what goes into nonprofit organizations. So it’s been wonderful to work with her. And she’s learning a lot as well. And I love having a, you know, high school aged person coming and helping us because they keep things vital, you know, they help us understand what young people are looking for when it comes to like, marketing and things like that. So very excited to see where we go going forward.
Lee Ann: I’m sure her enthusiasm has made it, as a youngster, her enthusiasm is probably what’s really been fun to work with.
Olivia: Yeah. Yeah. So we’re hoping to expand the internship program for next year and, and just focus especially on that in keeping like, one of the high schoolers, like in the internship position longer term. And I’ll start working with the school kind of like right as school starts, so that’ll be cool.
Lisa: Is that through like Crystal Green and that program too?
Olivia: Exactly.
Lisa: Awesome. I had her on the podcast a few, gosh, I don’t know how long ago now, but a few podcasts ago and it was such a cool program to learn about.
Olivia: Absolutely. The school’s doing amazing stuff for how small they are. Yeah, it’s pretty incredible.
Lee Ann: She’s got a huge program that she works with.
Olivia: Yeah.
Lee Ann: At the school. So. Yeah, I think it’s great that we were able to tap into something.
Olivia: Yeah, totally. One more reason I’d like to say we work so well together is I. Well, just a cherry on top is Lee Ann last year, we made all these little name cards for everybody and I had like operations lead and registration lead and I made festival guiding light for Lee Ann because she does everything. Yes, she’s the treasurer, but she also is. She just keeps me on task and is extremely organized and really on top of everything. So I couldn’t do it without her, obviously. So thank you for all you do, Lee Ann.
Lee Ann: Oh, thank you.
Lisa: Great. Thank you both so much.
Olivia: I feel like we’re peaceful because you’re peaceful. Like, you’re, super chill.
Lisa: You know what’s funny is I also feel more confident, obviously, the two years later. I feel like I’ve got my equipment dialed in. I’ve got my editing tools dialed in.
Olivia: You seem so chill.
Lisa: So that helps.
Lisa: OK so first of all. I love when my podcast guests reference one another, and I think it’s so cool that the festival is able to work with the high school’s internship program. If you haven’t listened to my episode with Crystal Green, go check that out. It’s called Back to School with D51’s Work-Based Learning Program, and somehow it wasn’t just published a couple months ago, it was published in August of 2025.
Second of all. Did you notice how intrigued I am about the idea of starting a lavender farm?
Check out the 15th annual Colorado Lavender Festival, June 26th to 28th, with the main festival in the park on Saturday, June 27th. Find the full schedule at https://coloradolavender.org/annual-lavender-festival/.
The podcast’s theme music is Riverbend, by Geoff Roper.
Thanks for listening. With love, from Palisade.
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