Most farm tours end at the edge of the field. This one ends at the still, with a bottle you filled yourself.
The Meet Lavender Workshop is our distillation session: a private walk through the farm, a look at the cultivars up close, and then the actual business of turning cut lavender into essential oil and hydrosol, with you doing part of the work rather than watching someone else do it.
It has finished for this season. It runs during the blooming months, because it needs flowers, and it will be back next season. This is what it involves, so you know whether to watch for the dates.
It starts in the field
The session opens with a private tour. You walk the farm, see how the lavender is grown and how the rows are managed, and go through the greenhouse.
Then you meet the lavender you will be working with. Depending on where the season is when you come, that can mean fresh-cut flowers straight from the rows, and there are dried flowers from up to eleven lavender varieties to handle and compare. Eleven is considerably more than the three we grow for production, and putting that many side by side is the fastest way to understand why cultivar is the thing that matters most about lavender.
Then you run the still
Distillation is where the workshop earns its name. Steam goes through the plant material, carries the volatile compounds with it, then condenses and separates.
You take part in that rather than standing behind a rope. Guided through each stage, you help load, run and watch the separation happen, and two different products come off the same batch of flowers in front of you:
- Lavender essential oil, the concentrated aromatic oil that separates out
- Lavender hydrosol, the fragrant water collected from the same run
Seeing both emerge from one pile of lavender is the moment the whole thing clicks for most people. If you want the explanation in advance, we wrote it up in what a hydrosol is and how it differs from essential oil, and how lavender oil is made.
What you take home
Every guest leaves with four things:
- A 5 ml bottle of the essential oil you distilled
- A 200 ml bottle of the hydrosol from the same run
- A fresh lavender bundle
- A flower rattan reed diffuser
The oil and the hydrosol are the ones that matter. They came out of a still you were standing at, from flowers cut on the farm you had just walked through, and there is no version of that you can buy off a shelf.
Who it suits
Individuals, couples, families and groups. There is no formal age restriction, and children are welcome with an adult supervising them.
No experience is needed and nothing is assumed. All equipment and materials are provided, so you only need comfortable clothes and shoes suited to the weather, since a good part of the session is outdoors.
The complete experience runs about ninety minutes to two hours, including the private tour, and can be conducted in English or Traditional Chinese. The site is wheelchair accessible.
At a glance
- What it is: hands-on lavender distillation with a private farm and greenhouse tour
- How long: roughly 90 minutes to two hours
- Where: Lavenderland, 8460 Steveston Highway, Richmond, BC
- Languages: English or Traditional Chinese
- Children: welcome with adult supervision
- Accessibility: wheelchair accessible
- Materials: everything provided
- You take home: 5 ml essential oil, 200 ml hydrosol, a fresh lavender bundle, a reed diffuser
- Weather: sessions run regardless, so dress for the day
- Currently: finished for this season, returning next blooming season
Until it comes back
Dates, session times and prices for next season are announced closer to the time. Watch the events page if you want to catch them early, because the sessions are small.
In the meantime the farm has not shut. The Wax Hanger and Botanical Candle workshops run outside the blooming season, the Gift Shop is open all year, and here is what else is worth coming out for once the fields have been cut.
If you want the product without waiting for the workshop, the essential oil and hydrosol we distil here are sold by cultivar, so you can smell the difference between Superblue, Melissa and Grosso the way you would have at the still.