Lavender of the Drôme

The Drôme Provençale is indeed an extraordinary garden where two thousand eight hundred varieties of plants await you.

Aromatic and medicinal plants exude their fragrances.

From lavender to linden, rosemary to thyme, savory to sage and oregano, it's a symphony of colours and scents encountered during your walks.

The Lavandula genus comprises some thirty varieties. Three of them grow spontaneously in France: the true lavender, hybrid lavender and spike lavender.

When spring arrives, the fields turns a soft green. At the end of each stem a tiny stalk appears and this stock grows and progressively holds more and more tiny flowers. The calyxes develop glands in which the secretion and storing of the essential oil begins very early.

In summer, the lavender fields become colourful with a multitude of tones of mauve and blue. The plants bear large floral shafts rich in essential oil. The calyx glands have finished their storage function and it is then time to very carefully gather what nature has prepared.

Following the first harvest, a lavender plantation remains in place for about 10 years. It begins producing in its second year and the optimal yields of essential oil occur every 4th and 6th year.

The lavender blossoms from early June to the end of August; the period varies depending on the altitude and the weather that year!