Tuesday, July 23, 2013

Cherry Point Lavender Festival



This first picture is an aerial view of Cherry Points Farm's Lavender Labyrinth which surrounds a wonderful, huge herb garden.



The entire labyrinth and structures were all created with lots of meaning behind them.



To walk the labyrinth would take hours.



The lavender was at its peak, it smelled wonderful.



There were many free classes through out the day, this first class we studied how to propagate plant cutting and were able to take clippings off some of the herbs, dip them in root tone and plant them in a cup of soil to take home. The root tone helps the roots on plant cuttings to develop.



All the herb gardens were planted in different sections. This one is their Dye garden, some of the plants in it are St. John Wort, bietermeister sage ( a wonderful big soft leaved sage, I have a clipping of this).



Golden Marguerite (anthemis tinctoria ) any plant with a Latin name of tinctoria in it is a great dye plant. I have a starter plant of this, hopefully in the next couple of  years I'll have enough to use.



Lovely tansy which I still need to add to my dye garden.
Their were many more plants including yarrow.



They had many different herb beds a few were the Biblical:herbs from the bible.



Herbs from Shakespeare.



Medicinal



Herbs used in Vinegar.



This is Rue (not a common herb) the leaves are so cute. I think this herb was used in old Europe. 



There were free craft classes all day making lavender wands and small wreaths.



My favorite teacher Marsha gave 3 different classes this one is her cooking with lavender. Oh my gosh she cooked a whole meal from appetizer to chicken dinner for us to sample. Too wonderful!
There are many different varieties of lavender the culinary types are munsted and hidcote.
This is a annual event so keep that in mind for next July!
This farm also has berries, apples, cherry's, their own bakery and all summer long have a fish boil on Saturday nights. What a beautiful place in such a small little town.



So my treasure today, I was running errands for my mom down a road I don't normally travel and there in this front yard was this old rusty iron gate for sale! I was so excited I've been looking for one. This one is from 1929 the year the house was built, they had a stone fence around part of the house and this was one of the gates. (He's looking for the other one for me).



I wish it was a little more ornate because I plan on rust dyeing it on white wool blanket, then I thought it would be cute to applique wool flowers and vines climbing up the rusted gate design. How fun will that be? A few bugs, maybe a bird sitting on top of the fence. Or a Autumn fence with pumpkin vines and sunflowers! The ideas go on and on.

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

Hey Kathy....the lavendar gardens were beautiful! Have you ever dyed with rusty old keys? They would be cool on dyed fabric. Do hydrangeas dye well? I have access to purple/bright blue if they do make great color. Deb C

Kathy -MIQuilter said...

Hi Deb, I would love to dye with old rusty keys, I've been on the look out for them. If you have any I'd like to borrow some (it only takes a week).
I think hydrangeas would produce a pale tan or yellow. Thanks anyway Deb.

Anonymous said...

Kathy-I have many keys....the key is finding where I put them. I am cleaning and packing, we are downsizing asap. I know I will find them. not sure how rusty they are, is there a way to make them more rusty? Will let you know when you find them.

Deb Hardman said...

I love the gate! I have a wheel I'm going to use.

I went to the Botanical gardens
yesterday, & it Made me think of you. There were beautiful plants everywhere. They had
rue that was about 8 feet tall. It looked like a ethereal cloud of soft purple.

Lots of Yarrow in different colors too!

  • Deb Hardman
  • Allie Aller
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