Lavender Fields, Hartley Park Farm

Last weekend we headed to the Lavender Fields at Hartley Park Farm (Hampshire) with family. The lavender fields only have 4 open days in July so we made sure we visited. When we arrived we were greeted by a sea of wildflowers. This patch had poppies, wild daisies and cornflowers in blue, pink, purple and white. Apparently they’d been planted for the Jubilee.

Next to that was a huge patch of poppies. I loved these poppies – they had big floppy petals and were blowing about in the wind. This is what I imagined our front garden would look like this year – I accidentally tipped a whole pack of (250) seeds out but sadly we only have one poppy!

Once we’d made our way past the wildflowers there was lavender growing neatly in rows.

The weather was overcast and not overly warm that day so we didn’t get a waft of lavender walking around, like we’d hoped. But when we rubbed our hands on it, it smelt amazing.

We saw Hidcote lavender.

Arctic Snow lavender. I like how Wintery this looks.

And my favourite, Miss Katherine, because of the unusual colour.

We stopped off at the cafe tent for some food (surprise surprise). These cream teas were bloody delicious and the best part of the day for the boys! The scones were really fresh and instead of clotted cream the cream was whipped. Anyway, enough about the scones.

The garden we ate in had a wall of sweet peas, I’ve never seen so many! I was pretty proud of the ones I had growing at home until I saw these.

The weather held out just long enough for us to see the fields and scoff cream teas and ploughmans lunches outside. Then it bucketed down so we made our way to the shop to pick up a few things; chocolate and a Miss Katherine plant for the garden.

I had no idea a lavender farm was so close and only found out about it from a leaflet in our local shop. Entry was £3 and some of that is donated to local charities. We all felt quite sleepy/relaxed when we got home, I think it did us good. If you like plants it’s a good afternoon out. If you don’t then the cream teas and chocolate shop might float your boat.

They have a useful section on their website about growing lavender in your garden and you should check out their recipe for lavender and lemon biscuits. Yum!