New Life Lavender Through the Years 2015-2024

5 days ago11 min read

After nearly 10 years of our humble beginnings, I've finally found my way to my first blog post. I wanted to create a record of all the growth we've had since it's conception. I find value in knowing where we've been and seeing changes and growth despite all the mistakes we made. It's important to reflect on so I can keep my mind focused on the future and what direction New Life Lavender needs to take in the future.

For anyone reading this hoping to see our labor of love and the stamina it takes, thinking and dreaming of starting their own lavender farm someday, I hope you find inspiration through our hard work.

2015-2016- This is where New Life Lavender was birthed. We began with an abandoned farmhouse set on 40 acres. A house that was wildly overgrown by large trees sat on the property with a tree growing out of it. Several outbuildings crested the farmstead that needed to be torn down. It seemed lost to us, but that is where the beauty was...waiting to be restored. Local neighbors would stop in curious as to what we were doing. As they shared stories of what this property meant in the "old days," we began to see a commonality from past to present. This land was the place of gatherings. We were told the strongest moonshine was distilled here, and all the neighbors and locals would come out to gather here. We feel honored to continue this tradition of using the land as a place of "gathering." A place where everyone who comes can see beauty from ashes and experience healing as they decompress from the stress of life, just as we did.

In April/May of 2016, we put in many long hours setting up the layout of the farm, and with the help of family and a good friend, planted 600 cherry trees and 4000 lavender plants all by hand. Work continued all summer long in the fields and with the farm store.

Images are from old farmstead and early building farm store

2017 rolled around and brought loads of work as we finished the inside the farm store ourselves to save money, making products for our store, and planting 200 more cherry trees and over 1,000 more lavender plants. We have 21 different varieties of Lavender, each with a unique use or purpose. We opened our farm store in June 2017 and had our first Lavender Fest with Farm to Table Dinner and held seasonal Afternoon Teas. We knew in order for people to gather, good food was a must, so we installed a commercial kitchen in our farm store to make our Original Homemade Cherry Lavender Pie, along with several specialty lavender drinks, cupcakes and more.

Our dream was to teach our kids the value of hard work on the farm as each child found their own niche. They did their own research as they worked to prepare for opening. We envisioned our kids teaching others on our daily farm tours about their projects. One son became our beekeeper. He was the "walking encyclopedia" of all things beekeeping. One son was drawn to animals, so he researched all about sheep and steers, helped Dad to build the fence, and bottle fed orphaned sheep and calves. Our daughter loved fish, so she researched all about Koi fish and taught her fish to eat from her hands. Each kid wrote their own speeches for the farm tours, down to funny fish jokes told at each farm tour.

As part of the farm tour, we not only covered topics about growing lavender and cherries, but we built a glass observation hive where our son could talk about the intricacies of bees while attendees could observe the inside workings of the hive. We brought each tour to our animals so attendees could feed and pet the baby calves and sheep while our son shared information about his project. We built ponds for our daughter to host her Koi fish, and quickly became a love of every visitor.

Pics from 2017

2018 Brought our 2nd season open to the public with great success. We hosted our 2nd annual lavender fest and wreath making classes and added our famous lavender ice cream to our menu, which was a huge hit. We also added a pergola with swings in the center of the Knot Garden. We continued to host our seasonal Afternoon Teas, a 3 course tea with live music and everything lavender in some way! We continually plant more lavender and more cherry trees and expand the variety of goods offered in our farm store. We quickly realized we needed more space, so we spent the fall & winter months expanding our farm store area to make room for our farm tours and bus tours.

Pics from 2018

2019-We've successfully completed another wonderful season of hard work and welcoming all our new guests to the farm. We loved seeing all our cherished friends of the farm! We now have over 25+ varieties of lavender, 10,000 lavender plants, 5 acres of wildflower Sanctuary for bees & monarchs in addition to the lavender plants. Our cherry trees took another growing season to develop. They are on their own timetable and as farmers, we have to be patient!

We've seen much growth this year on our farm. We had the opportunity to be part of many magazine articles, photo shoots, LIVE TV segments, as well as other TV promotions. You can watch these segments or read the articles on my blog post here.

Yet with all that, we are humbled by the love and support we have from all our guests and faithful patrons daily. Our goal and motto have always been the same, to do everything we do to our best and fullest to honor God, and to create a space that is warm and inviting for others to enjoy! We are looking forward to dreaming, planning, and developing new ideas and products for the upcoming 2020 season! But rest first.

2020-Amidst all the fears of COVID-19, we were blessed to be able to safely open our farm. It became a place of rest for the soul for many who came as they breathed in fresh air and strolled along our 12,000 lavender plants and 8 acres of wildflowers. It became a place of hope and a safe place where people could still gather outdoors and enjoy the beauty of nature. We are grateful to be able to serve the thousands of people who came, as we safely navigated the crowds of people through an online reservation system that limited the number of people in our store at once, a system that our 16 year old son developed during the first quarantine in March and a system that became successful for us that he decided to offer his system to any other business who found themselves in a similar position needing to navigate through COVID. He created his own business called Ag-Reserve. You can read more on his website: ag-reserve.com.

We added another successful offering to our farm store this year as we developed our own "Blending Bar" with different essential oils that customers would custom create their own natural scents.

Pics from 2020

2021- We celebrated our 5th season this year! With over 25 varieties and 14,000 it has been a labor of love. We've seen our staff grow this year to accommodate new growth, and seen our kids grow in so many ways. We are so proud of each of them. This year also brought an end to the "Cherry" part of our farm. As we have planted thousands of trees, each year, more and more died and finally, we pulled the last of the cherry trees out. But as sad as this makes us, as a farmer, we understand the risks involved that sometimes things do not always work out as we planned, no matter the effort, and this gives way to try something else in the future. We were blessed by hosting PBS on our farm (to air 2022) and Madison News Channel 5, as well as being featured in Midwest Magazine. We continue to make more products as our essential oil production increases.

We are grateful for our big & beautiful lavender plants that have survived each winter, which, if you're a lavender farmer, you understand that statement; and healthy children and family. We look forward to creating a beautiful oasis for next summer for everyone to enjoy.

Pics from 2021

2022-We have now concluded our 6th Lavender Season! Thank you to everyone who has supported us throughout the years-we are truly grateful to you! We decided to extend our season til mid-October and have heard from many of you that was appreciated. This year has brought challenges of inflation, a tumbling economy and fears of the unknown from a financial standpoint. We lost a whole field due to winter kill, our best and biggest field, where all photographers went and the one we used for wreath making classes, and the field used for our best oil production. But our trust remains in the Lord, who is a faithful provider in every way. Replanting a whole field is really a 3 yr loss. We remain optimistic & hopeful that things will level out in the years to come. PBS "Wisconsin Life" came to our farm last summer to film a story about how our farm began and aired October 17, 2022. Thank you to Joel Waldinger for coming out with your crew and sharing about our farm. We were privileged to receive the WATA Agritourism Award of Excellence in which many politicians came out to honor our farm. We are so grateful for all our employees who have helped over the years. We could not do what we do without you!

We introduced our Sunflower & Zinnia fields this year for U-Pick, which added a burst of color in the autumn months and extended our season a bit. We hosted an ornament making class on our farm during our Christmas Open House, and one of my favorite teachers and piano teachers since childhood attended. It was her last time she was able to visit our farm as she lost her battle to cancer.

Our oldest son graduated from high school this year & we are so proud of him. He is studying Computer Science as he has taught himself over 15 different computer languages since he was 13 yr old. He landed himself a great job as a freshman in college with Garmin. I like to believe that growing up on this farm has played a part to where he is today, as the farm has taught him the needs of a small business, and rising up to the challenges that we faced as a small business. He worked diligently to write code for our website, streamlining payroll, creating Ag-Reserve for our online reservation system for our farm tours, developing a GPS guided map of our farm, and more.

(T) Now, our son senior year. (B) Then (2017) our oldest son when we first started teaching classes -on making candles with our beeswax during our 1st Lavender Fest. He wore many hats from driving tractor everyday, teaching every farm tour about beekeeping & distillation of oil, harvesting, weeding, helping in the kitchen, computer programmer for our business, & more. We are excited to see where he goes in life.

Pics from 2022

2023-We are overwhelmed by your support of our farm; words cannot express enough THANKS! Truly, we are humbled by your support of our farm for our 7th Lavender Season, our best yet. We have grown, expanded our farm building--much needed storage space so I can be better organized--to not have to carry a van load of boxes every day to restock! HA! We added an employee bathroom as well, so our employees don't have to wait 30 minutes to use the restroom. We now have about 20 employees--WOW- what a change from our humble beginnings when it was literally just us 5 family members. We have felt growing pains over the years. We treated all our employees and a guest to the WIS DELLS Sunset Boat Tour, and a good time was had by all.

We had over 30,000 visitors this year, as social media influencers come and help spread the word about our vision and our farm. We are so GRATEFUL! Our family has changed over the course of the years, some things are natural and good, others are not what one might expect as we have waded through the murky waters of divorce. Although our family has changed this year, our partnership continues. Our vision for our lavender farm continues to be a safe place, a refuge of hope, peace and rest for the weary soul, regardless of us not having it all together.

Pics from 2023

2024-

Over the years we've seen first-hand how our land is used each day for celebrations such as anniversaries, birthdays, engagements, bachelorette parties, weddings and baby showers, or just loved ones and friends finding joy and encouragement with each other. Often, friends and family spend one last time together as a loved one prepares to leave this Earth and pass on to the next. We love hearing your stories, as these stories create a bond that connects us together, with love and support for each other and a way to find peace and healing. It hasn't been glamorous or easy, it's involved many years of backbreaking work, sweat and tears. Years we've reflected on and wondered how we were able to keep going, years where it felt like a money hole and wondered if we would ever get out of the red. But we kept going, because we believed it could somehow, and with our faith in God, knew in our hearts there was purpose behind the hard times which far outweighed immediate hardships. Today, we consider it a privilege to celebrate with you, in any season that you are in, for whatever special occasion or just because you need a wellness day, we are so excited to meet you and hear your stories. It's exciting to see what we believed in our hearts from the beginning for the purpose of this land, come to fruition each summer, through good years and bad, this is why we do what we do.

This year, Aron planted our new Lavender Labyrinth, and saw many visitors enjoy slowing down in life as they walked through the lavender maze. It will be such a wonderful add to our farm as it grows each season

We celebrated with our employees by going to The Vue & the Magic Show in the Dells. We all had a wonderful time.

We were recognized during WI Agritourism Month by Governor Evers. We were privileged to have the Governor's office visit our farm, as well as Governor Ever's himself. He was very kind and very interested in everything we do on our farm. We also want to thank wmtv15news as we were excited to be part of the "On the Road" Show with Anchor Mark McPherson on wmtv15news when they came to Sauk County this summer.

We had many wonderful and kind visitors this year, many who dropped in and gifted us with a beautiful painting inspired by our farm, a hand crocheted lavender brooch, and other very supportive families who celebrated our farm with us and brought encouragement in difficult seasons. Overall, it was a significantly slower season, we think it's due to economic issues, but we trust that our farm can still survive in good times and bad.

This year we celebrated two graduations, our middle son from high school and our youngest daughter from grade school. We are ever so proud of each of them. They all have worked so diligently over the years.