Lavender Lovers Handbook The 100 Most Beautiful & Fragrant Varieties for Growing Crafting & Cooking

With its intoxicating scent, gorgeous wands of purple flowers, and silvery foliage, lavender is one of the most sought-after plants. But the horticultural reasons for choosing lavender go far beyond its beauty. Lavender attracts beneficial insects, requires little water once established, and is deer resistant.

In The Lavender Lover's Handbook, lavender grower Sarah Bader teaches gardeners how they can successfully grow this beloved plant. Featuring the 100 easiest, most stunning lavenders available today, this beginner's guide provides a complete checklist of the color, fragrance, size, and foliage of each plant, in addition to basic pruning, spacing, and planting requirements. The text is rounded out with tips on how to harvest, cook, and craft with this wonderful herb.

Its abundant variety, hardiness, fragrance, and culinary uses make lavender one of the most popular and versatile plants. And now, with this practical and accessible guide in hand, it's easier than ever to grow at home.

"A field guide, growing guide, and craft guide all in one, The Lavender Lover's Handbook has something for anyone who loves this plant."
Karen - ' - s Korner

"This book is the heady distillation of [Sarah Bader's] knowledge."

I think it pisses God off when you walk by the color purple in a field somewhere and don t notice it. Alice Walker

The Lavender Lover's Handbook provides a complete checklist of the color, fragrance, size, and foliage of the 100 easiest, most stunning lavenders available today. In addition to details about spacing, planting, pruning, Sarah Berringer Bader offers tips toharvest, cook, and craft with this wonderful herb.The abundant variety, hardiness, fragrance, and culinary opportunities make lavender one of the most popular and versatile plants, and with this practical and accessible guide, it's easier than ever to grow lush lavender at home.

"The best recent all-around lavender book with something for gardeners, crafters, and cooks alike." --Library Journal

Lavender is beloved for its and culinary and medicinal uses. In The Lavender Lover's Handbook, Sarah Berringer Bader provides a complete overview of the 100 most colorful, fragrant, and stunning varieties. You will discover expert tips on spacing, planting, pruning, and care and maintenance. Additional information includes tips on how to harvest, cook with, and preserve the plant, along with step-by-step crafts and project that use lavender in beautiful and soothing ways.

Sarah Berringer Bader has always been drawn to lavender. In 2000 she purchased a five-acre farm south of Portland, Oregon, and after visiting the Sequim Lavender Festival in Washington and seeing rows and rows of this wondrous herb, decided to create a test plot of 365 plants despite knowing nothing about planting lavender. She learned through trial and error, helped by a little-known society of lavender pioneers who had dedicated their careers to cultivating, growing, and preserving the true species of lavender. Soon she purchased many varieties of lavender from a seasoned grower in Oregon who had propagated starts from his own extensive collection acquired over a twenty-year span.

In 2005 she planted almost 5000 lavender plants with more than ninety cultivars and began propagating her own starts from cuttings. She opened her farm to the public and began holding the classes that inspired this book. Sarah and her farm, Lavender at Stonegate, have been featured in regional publications, on television and radio, and in Grower Talks and Country Gardens magazines.