Lovely in Lavender

Lovely in Lavender Fragrant festival celebrates local farms

The scent of lavender drifted through the air and along the rows of purple-hued booths at the 20th annual Blanco Lavender Festival on June 6-8. The event drew large crowds of visitors and vendors, both old and new.

Dripping Springs Distilling was at the festival for the second year, serving up tasty samples of their lavender vodka.

“We started making our lavender vodka three years ago,” Kristi Quick, Director of Hospitality at Dripping Springs Distilling, said. “We do use Hill Country Lavender Farm’s lavender for our vodka. That's what made us think that it would be a good fit to have us here.”

Quick said they went through more products this year, and enjoyed being part of the unique festival.

“It's like a little piece of what you see in the pictures and imagery of what French lavender farms look like. I think it's just really cool and unique that we're able to do that here in Texas,” Quick said. “And even if you don't love lavender, there's so much out here to do. It's just a really great and fun time and just supportive of a really cool community.”

Amber Busboom, owner of Cypress Creek Lavender in Wimberley, has been participating in the event for nine years. Busboom said one of the things she enjoys most about the festival is meeting other vendors.

“I get to meet people who make cool soaps and cool art and things like that,” Busboom said. “It's just kind of fun to see what other people are doing.”

Vendor Kaysha Rhynard of Bohemian Cowgirl Emporium was exhibiting for her second year.

“Last year was phenomenal. It was the first time I had done it, and it's just an excellent show,” Rhynard said. “Sometimes at shows you see the same stuff over and over this one, every booth is different, and everybody has something unique.”

As part of the festival, attendees could also tour the Hill Country Lavender Farm, which is just a short drive from Blanco’s town square. The farm, which is now owned by Tasha and R.G. Corradini, was the first lavender farm in Texas.

R.G. Corradini said that the farm was started by Jeannie Ralston and Robb Kendrick in 1999. Jeannie was a journalist, and Kendrick was a national geographic photographer. When Kendrick went on assignment to France to do photography of a lavender harvest, he noticed that their soil was a lot like the soil in the Hill Country.

“He came home and he planted some lavender and it was successful, so he planted a lot more lavender, because Robb never does anything halfway,” Corradini said. “And it bloomed, it took off, it was doing really well.”

They didn’t really know what to do with it, so they put a classified ad in the newspaper advertising that people could come and cut their own lavender. Jeannie had always wanted to go out in the field and cut her own bunch, but nobody in France would allow her to do that.

“It was just a little tiny, old-school classified ad, and they didn't think much of it, but they woke up the next day and there was a line all the way down the county road from their house,” Corradini said.

Tasha Corradini had been Robb’s photo assistant. But on that day, she became Jeannie's lavender assistant. They started making a few products, and then soon, they had the idea to create a festival.

“They thought it would be a great draw for Blanco to help boost the sales and economy,” Corradini said. “So everybody worked together to start a little festival. And it went ahead and grew.”

Years later, Robb and Jeannie gave Tasha the opportunity to buy the lavender farm, and she did. It had a couple of different locations over the years, and then they moved it to their property at the corner of 165 and 2325.

Although Hill Country Lavender may have been the first lavender farm in the area, others soon joined it.

“At one point in time we had risen to about 12 different farms around here, but that has dwindled greatly,” Corradini said. “So that was how we became the lavender capital of Texas.”

Hill Country Lavender Farm is usually open mid-May through late November. Hours vary depending on weather. However, their products are available year round at their shop inside Brieger Pottery - which is next to Redbud Cafe. “It’s small batches and we focus on high quality,” Corradini said. “We have a line of culinary lavender, bath, home sprays, soaps, lotions and things like that, and we will ship to anywhere in the lower 48.”

To learn more about the farm and its products, visit www.hillcountrylavender. com.