Everybody has been there and done that at the Oregon Country Fair; it’s the same weirdos on the same drugs every year. But this year you need not fear, because as an alternate to having to deal with naked inebriated people, you can be breathing in the luxurious smell of lavender, instead of getting a contact high from that spliff of the person next to you.
The Oregon Lavender Festival is a tour of lavender farms around Oregon showcasing one of the region’s most unique and versatile crops.
“In 2002, the Portland growers got started (with their festival), and in 2004, the Yamhill area growers got started, and in 2006, we all came together and said ‘Boy, if you’re all doing a festival and you’re all doing a festival, maybe we should all get together and do a festival,’” Donna Delikat, an Oregon Lavender Association board member, said.
The first statewide festival of the Oregon Lavender Association began in 2007. Since then, the festival has consisted of a tour beginning with as few as eight participating farms to the now 23 that will be opening their doors to the public. The main stage is set up in Yamhill, Oregon, just southwest of Portland and will be host live music, food, and lavender products, but the farms participating in the tour cover the entire state and include seven counties.
Each venue offers individual attractions and activities. McKenzie River Lavender, located at 40882 McKenzie Hwy east of Springfield, will be offering you-pick, plants, lavender lemonade, and various lavender-flavored sweets. Vendors will also be at most sites with lavender products such as essential oil, soaps, sprays and other items.
“It’s very similar to a winery tour,” Delikat said. “When you’re taking the Oregon Lavender Festival tour, you’re going to the individual lavender farm where every farm has its own unique characteristics.  Some people do distill their own oils, and there are a hundred different varieties depending on what (variety) they’re distilling.”
Oregon’s production of lavender is similar to that of many of the other crops grown in the region: It’s done on a small, high-quality scale.
“France and Australia and New Zealand dominate the market in terms of essential oils market,” Delikat said. “We’re more of like the boutique wineries.”
Australia, France and New Zealand grow the lion’s share of lavender grown in the world and sell to huge companies such as Palmolive, who use lavender oil as an ingredient in their dish soaps. Though most of Oregon’s lavender is also distilled into oil, many vendors and growers choose to make potpourri, teas, soaps and many other products. New Deal Distillery in Portland makes a Lavender Cello, and infusing lavender in vodka or other liquors at home is a relatively easy process.
In typical form, the expertise that exists in the Oregon lavender community is unprecedented and world class. Delikat said that five out of the eight top world lavender specialists reside in the state.
“We have Dr. Don Roberts is an expert in gas chromatography, oil analysis,” Delikat said. “We have Andy Van Hevelingen who has spoken at the Sequim Lavender Conference and has attended the Royal Botanical Gardens
Lavender Conference in England.”
Although the OLA doesn’t have any formal or direct ties to Oregon State University’s agricultural department or the United States Department of Agriculture in Corvallis, Delikat said the OLA hopes to work with those
organizations in the future.
“The main focus, of course, is education,” Delikat said. “We want to let people know about this absolutely wonderful product of Mother Nature to be used in so many varying ways, and it’s all beneficial. And it’s drought tolerant; it’s beautiful in the landscape; it just has a lot of things going for it.”

[email protected]