Next up in the ‘Photos I Took Last Summer But Never Got Round to Posting’ series – The Lavender Fields in Hampshire. To be fair we drove past the other day, and they look pretty much exactly like this now, so if it weren’t for all the growing those pesky kids have done, these could have been taken last week.
The Lavender Fields is one of my favourite places to visit in the early summer months; apart from the endless rows of purple stems, there are also towering sunflowers – and then there are the wildflowers. A huge expanse has been dedicated to cornflowers and poppies, nigella, marguerite and scabious; Californian poppies nod in the breeze, their bright orange petals fluttering delicately. I grow wildflowers in our garden every year, not only because they look so glorious, but also because they’re heaven for bees and butterflies – the bee population is in serious decline, and so if there’s anything we can do to help, I think we kind of have to.
The kiddos love it every time we visit, and spend ages pottering up and down the rows of flowers, talking to the bees and spotting all the insects. Every five minutes, one of them will say, ‘what’s that one?’ and I’ll have to get my phone out and start googling insects. Great fun!
To get to the fields, you have to drive through the rest of Hartley Park Farm Business Park, and there is the most BEAUTIFUL shop that sells Kantha robes and woven rugs and all sorts of lovely goodies (I can’t remember the name, sorry!). Far too expensive for us, but I always spend some time stroking the stock anyway!