Twickle purple

Rosea…Grosso…Melissa…the morning slips over a wind row, drawing cool shadows and warm light onto a field of Mediterranean blue. Thriving in this ground is a variety of cultivars from faraway places—Croatia, U.K., the Netherlands. Long dense rows of spiked flowers are ready for harvest, a once-a-season chance to take in the ‘wow factor’—the feeling —of an acre of lavender at peak.

I close my eyes and search for comparison: If this field was a room…it would be my grandmother’s kitchen where curtains of Belgium lace, neatly hung, intercept the breezes of childhood summers. A table set with pressed linen, delicately crocheted in azure blue; a mason jar of lilac and in the garden beyond, rose-painted hollyhock against a bleached clapboard shed.

Decades have passed yet today’s imagery— the spread of embroidered sky neatly draped above a tapestry of lavender blue, knotted with the stiff mud of Hillier clay—rings with youthful recall. Still, I am reminded that with all its descriptive, this farm along Closson Road has come about with the foresight and plain hard work of an energetic couple. Gaspe, Quebecborn Rolande Leblanc and Derek Ryles, whose family roots lie in Manitoba, hatched a dream a few years back and 4,500 km away in the ‘land of the midnight sun’ – the Yukon.

I find Leblanc labouring beside field workers as they straddle the rows like sheep herders at a shearing contest. They carefully shave the plants with hand sickles and toss the flowers into containers. “We try to take the head only and not the leafage,” Leblanc tells me. “Catch the lavender before the oil has dissipated due to the wind and sun.”

The flowers are valued for their essential oils. Beneficial for respiratory relief as well as for antiviral and antibacterial properties, lavender oil is recognized as one of the most powerful remedies in the plant world. I ask Leblanc about the genesis of the farm. “We were travelling in New Zealand and came around a bend in the road,” she tells me. “There were acres and acres of lavender….and the aroma!” At the time, Leblanc and Ryles were living in Whitehorse and contemplating new possibilities. The tipping point came on another trip. “A lavender producer in France told us that if you can grow grapes in a region you should be able to grow lavender…” When the couple returned home, they considered. “While the Yukon is just fabulous, eventually the lack of light in winter affects you,” Leblanc says. “After being there 20 years, we decided that while we still have energy it was time to do something else.”

The something else called for adventure. “When we decided to move south, we were travelling near the County and came over the bridge….we always take the smallest roads…we were along here and saw a house with acreage for sale.” It seemed like the universe was pointing the way.

“We got a map of the soils….rock helps for drainage and lavender likes an alkaline soil which the limestone provides…we eventually bought and began to plant in 2005.”

Leblanc continues to cut as I follow. “It takes three years before we can harvest…you plant and worry whether they will survive the first summer…also they need a heavy snow cover in winter otherwise the wind and a freeze/thaw cycle can be harmful. We have three acres of lavender and now have added herbs…the Hillier herb blend has tarragon, chive and a pink lavender in it …there is camomile, peppermint, calendula…and many more. We make cream, lotion and soaps with the natural oils.” Curious, I leave the harvesters to follow Ryles, who carries a huge sack of flowers to the distilling apparatus where he will begin the process of oil extraction. “We are in the midst of a high-pressure weather pattern and there is very little dew in the morning,” he tells me. “When there is dew we have to wait until it dries out because water on the plant does not bode well for the quality of the oil.”

Derived from the Old French ‘lavande’ or Latin ‘lavare’, to wash, there are 23 species of lavender which is in the family of mint, thyme and rosemary. The producing of oil from the plant extends globally, from the Canary Islands, Australia, and Eastern Africa to southeast India.

“When about a third of the flowers have opened and about a third have opened and withered and the remaining third are yet to open,” Ryles tells me, “That’s a sign of the maturity in terms of potential oil…you have about a five-to-seven-day window to harves.” He coaxes the flowers and stems into a giant stainless steam cooker as he contemplates the fields. “The plants provide habitat…we find birds nesting or rabbits under the plants but they are not harmful…bees enjoy the flowers and produce a lavender honey that is harvested by a local beekeeper.”

We then talk about change, challenge and opportunity. “Ten years ago I was mixing concrete in a gravel pit in Whitehorse,” Ryles says, “and now I’m standing here in a field of lavender giving guided tours to a wide range of people…it’s definitely a shift in lifestyle.” Leblanc joins in, “It’s the feeling that comes with ‘we did it!’…it’s so calm…you hear the birds, the bees…the smell…it’s a dream we had…you dirty your hands in the ground achieving, while sharing what we are growing.”

“Here’s your sweet lavender….16 sprigs a penny, that you’ll find my ladies as sweet as any!” The lavender seller’s cry from the streets of London, England echoes from centuries past as I walk the rows while leaving. Hidcote, Provence, Seal…Common, the fine-spun perfume mixes with the song of field-swallows, wrens, flycatchers and the steady drone of bees at work. The sun now high, I pull on the brim of my ragged straw hat as I search out the markers…Krajova….Munstead…and then I stop to gather: 16 sprigs of Twickle Purple that now stand sprightly in a tiny cut-glass vase before me.