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text & photographs by c.l.fornari
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A dirt road winds through the woods in Harwich, past an old-style farmhouse and garden beds filled with neat rows of silver-green plants. To the south are hills encircling abandoned cranberry bogs, now filled with swamp maples and summer bushes. At the end of the drive is a small wooden building decorated with birdhouses and surrounded by potted plants. If you’ve arrived in midsummer, the air is fragrant. Even before you step out of the car, you know you’ve arrived at the Cape Cod Lavender Farm.
This pastoral destination started with 400 lavender plants and one woman’s dream. Twenty years ago, when Cynthia and Matthew Sutphin settled on 15 acres in Harwich, Cynthia wanted to plant lavender. “It spoke to me,” Cynthia Sutphin says. “It engages all of our senses: smell, touch, taste, and sight. It was what I wanted to grow.”
But before she started digging up the earth, Cynthia spent a lot of time finding out how to grow the aromatic green shrub. “My research was somewhat discouraging,” admits Cynthia. “Some people said that the climate and soil weren’t right.” She decided to give it a try anyway.
Those who counseled against growing lavender on Cape Cod weren’t necessarily misinformed. “To be fair to those who offered advice, there are several types of lavender,” Matthew says, ”and some of them don’t survive the winter here.”
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Cynthia and Matthew Sutphin are owners of the Cape Cod Lavender Farm. “Lavender engages all of our senses. It was what I wanted to grow,” Cynthia says.
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After identifying the varieties of lavender that would be most suitable for the area, Cynthia sowed 400 plants behind the small building that would eventually become the lavender farm’s first shop. The plants thrived through their first summer, survived the following winter, and Cynthia was hooked.
The following spring, Matthew bought his wife 10,000 lavender plants as a gift. The two of them put each one into the ground themselves, and the Cape Cod Lavender Farm was underway. The lavender flourished, and within a couple of years they decided to open the farm to the public.
Although lavender is very popular now, it wasn’t as well known when the Sutphins started the farm. Matthew and Cynthia remember that their earliest visitors would be surprised that the fragrance they were vaguely acquainted with came from a flower. “Our first customers would come in, see the lavender growing, and say ‘Oh, wow! It’s a plant?’” Cynthia recalls.
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| Children love the Enchanted Garden. |
In the beginning, Cynthia opened a small store where she sold bunches of fresh and dried lavender and lavender-scented candles. One day she agreed to stock some soaps handmade by Vivian Tortora of Brewster. “She made 30 bars of lavender soap for me, and we sold all 30 bars that week.”
This arrangement with Tortora, owner of Bethany Seasons, was the start of several successful collaborations with Cape artisans and boutique-style producers of crafts and kitchen items. Today at least nine locally produced lavender items fill the store’s shelves: body butter, pillows, marmalade, cookies, and bunches of farm-grown lavender, in addition to the soap and candles. “All of my suppliers are so critical to our success,” says Cynthia. “They keep the products local and very high quality.”
The lavender farm has always been popular for a lot more than soap. When the Sutphins started the store they bought 100 lavender plants to offer their visitors who were excited by the prospect of planting their own. All 100 plants were quickly sold that first season, so the following year they brought in five times that amount. In no time, these were snatched up as well.
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| Lavender blooms in all its glory at the Cape Cod Lavender Farm in Harwich. Most of the plants are in bloom by late June and flower into July. |
Currently the Sutphins order 8,000 lavender plants every year, most of which sell during the season. Any leftovers are planted in seven places on the farm, from the small plot where the original plants grew, to a large field up the hill from the store. Last summer the 400 plants original to the farm were replaced with leftover stock. Most of the plants are either “Munstead” or “Hidcote,” the hardiest varieties of Lavendula angustifolia.
Contrary to the early advice given to the Sutphins about the unsuitability of the climate, the lavender usually survives winter quite well. In fact, it isn’t the temperatures in January and February that are most damaging to the plants, but rather the end of winter weather. “March is the month when we’re on pins and needles,” Cynthia says. “If it’s rainy and damp followed by a freeze, it’s very hard on the plants.”
Snowy winters are good for the lavender farm because deep snow provides the ideal insulation for the plants. “If we’ve prepared the lavender by having things well pruned, the plants look pretty good in the spring,” says Cynthia.
The lavender plants are pruned twice in the season. When the flowers are harvested, they are pruned and shaped. To prepare the plants for winter, they are pruned and shaped again in October. Most of the lavender plants come into bloom in late June, and they continue flowering into July.
“For the most part, it’s all happening over about 10 days,” Cynthia says as she shakes her head and smiles. “It’s a bit of a frenzy when this main crop comes in. The other varieties that bloom later don’t take as long to pick because there are fewer plants. Once the main crop is harvested, it all tapers off to a more casual experience.”
Much of the lavender is put into bunches and sold fresh. The excess is kept and processed in a way that best preserves the flowers’ color and fragrance, and then sold dried. “We have a barn in Harwichport that is darkened, and it gets pretty hot in there,” Matthew says. The faster the flowers dry, the better color they have.”
Other than the mad rush to harvest the flowers at their peak, Cynthia says that her biggest challenge is keeping up with the weeds. She admits, however, that she enjoys the process of pulling out the intruders. “Weeding is cleansing and satisfying because you feel like you’ve done a nice job,” she explains. “I feel like I’ve given the plants a gift . . . like I’ve done my caretaking.”
Over the years Matthew and Cynthia have also created woodland walking trails and other gardens on the farm. Local artist Eddie Foisy designed the farm’s Enchanted Garden. “Eddie did the layout and stonework, and he built the little doorway for the fairies,” says Cynthia.
The Enchanted Garden, planted three years ago, provides a shady retreat from the heat of the summer sun, and the Sutphins find that some visitors enjoy this area even more than the lavender fields. Cynthia explains that it has been a real draw for children, who, she adds, “leave little treats, such as pebbles and shells, for the fairies on the doorstep.”
Whether they are coming to see the new shade garden, learn about growing lavender, witness the harvest of the flowers, or purchase lavender products, people of all ages are drawn to the Sutphins’ farm. Matthew says that he and Cynthia would like to build a wildlife observation platform in the woods, but otherwise there are no big changes in the works.
“We’re old enough that we’re not in a race to set the world on fire with lavender,” Matthew says. “We just want it all to be a part of our lifestyle.”
“We want to maintain what we have and keep it simple,” Cynthia agrees. “We’re lucky, and we enjoy sharing the farm and the way we live with anyone who wants to come.”
if you go
Cape Cod Lavender Farm
P.O. Box 611
Island Pond Trail
Harwich, MA 02645
508-432-8397
www.capecodlavenderfarm.com
Directions to the farm from Route 6: Take Route 6 to exit 10, Route 124. Follow Route 124 for one mile. Watch carefully for a small sign on the right. The farm is open to the public from March 1 to Columbus Day, seven days a week, from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m.
C.L. Fornari is a garden consultant, the author of The Cape Cod Garden, and the host of GardenLine on WXTK radio. She gardens in Osterville, MA.
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