FAQ for Red Oak Lavender Farm
About the Farm:
We are a small 5-acre lavender and flower farm at where our home is at, located at the base of the Appalachian mountains in Dahlonega, Ga. Here we grow over 4,000 lavender plants as well as thousands of superior flowers for cut bouquets, such as Dahlias, high end Zinnias, Gomphrenas, Celosias, Tulips, ranuculus, snapdragons, lisianthus, feverfew, anemones, stock, campanulas, delphiniums, larkspur, cosmos, and other flowers, as well as herbs, and vegetables. We also have our family chickens that you can feed and are housed in our chicken coop. We harvest our lavender at the end of June to distill and dry in order to make all our products that we sell at our lavender farm shop. Visitors are welcome to participate in our activities such as 'U-Pick' and how-to classes - watch for our 2024 calendar of events and tickets sometime in February. To do u-picks you must have a purchased ticket before arriving at the farm. Visitors are encouraged to take cell phone pictures amongst the flowers and lavender. Tag us in your pictures, we would love to see them!
Can I just show up to the farm at any time:
Red Oak Lavender Farm is a working farm on private property and our schedule is mid February 7th mid December; Open farm/shop hours: Wednesday-Friday 11-3, Saturday 10-4pm, and Sunday 1-4pm. We do love our visitors during open farm/shop hours, and since this is a private residence we do ask visitors to respect our privacy during closed hours. Visitors that show up while farm/shop is closed will be asked to leave. It’s important to have family time for the farmers too.
When is the best time to see lavender in bloom in Georgia? June is the best time to come for our biggest bloom of Lavender. We have different varieties of lavender and each type has their own bloom time: Some Stoechas in mid April - May and again in late summer, some English Lavenders in May and another lighter bloom in early autumn, and what we grow most of - big Intermedias in June.
Our cut flowers allow us to extend bloom time here at the farm. Blooms (cut flowers) begin from spring with white tulips, crocus, and daffodils in our garden areas. Summer time we of course have our lavender blooms throughout June with our sunflowers, zinnias, and English garden cut flowers such as gomphrenas, celosias, Larkspur, Queen Ann's Lace, Coneflowers, and more. Then at the very end of summer we have our Dahlias beginning to bloom through autumn, and at this time another crop of sunflowers to enjoy.
How to grow Lavender? Lavender is very difficult to grow in lavender, since lavender does not like our Georgia clay soil, hates a lot of rain and humidity. Lavender is a Mediterranean plant that needs at least 6 hours of full sun, want pH 6.8-7.8, and rocky well draining soil. You can’t grow lavender inside. You can’t keep it alive in a small pot. You can’t overwater it. You can’t grow it too close to another plant, since it needs airflow to help keep it from getting moist.
We have classes for home owners on how to grow lavender in April - June called Plant n’ Take and we even have a Lavender Academy workshop for up and coming lavender farmers in April.
We sell our lavender plants in spring (mid April through June) when it is the only time to plant lavender in Georgia. We will have a lavender plant table under our tent in the front. We will always post instructions on how to plant your lavender at the tent and you can take a photo of it to use once home or check here on planting. We usually sell 5 - 6 varieties of lavenders most all being intermedias that have the strongest scent and 1 English culinary called Munstead. Munstead will need partial shade, since we are closer to the equator here in Georgia compared to Provence France or north of US. If your baby lavender doesn’t bloom the first year, that is perfectly normal since it’s trying to establish a good root system. If it does start to grow flowering stems you need to cut those off before it blooms to keep those roots growing at their maximum length to prevent stress. Remember lavender is not meant to grow here in the southeast, but you can get it to grow if you provide these conditions the lavender needs to grow.
Do you grow any other flowers? We have added 2000+ dahlias that bloom in July until autumn. We wanted to add a great companion to lavender so we grow 700+ sunflowers that bloom in June and return for a second bloom in the fall. We can't forget our 50+ varieties of cut flowers so we have flower varieties in bloom from late spring through autumn! We are adding to the dahlia field for 2024 and have a hugh high tunnel greenhouse for growing all our specialty flowers. Please do not go into the high tunnel greenhouse or other greenhouses to keep diseases away from inside the greenhouses, since we do not know where your shoes have traveled.
Can we take photos with a professional camera during open hours? Professional photographs look amazing, but we only allow professional cameras to photograph flowers and not people. Cell phones are fine to use at all open times. We just do not have the time now to open our farm up after hours for photography.
Does it cost to visit to the farm? It is free to visit the Lavender Farm Shop during shop hours most months. Please note that during peak season in June, there is an entrance fee of $5.00 per car for 4 people. Children under 12 free. If just visiting the shop only parking is free.
Please visit our contact page for our most up to date store hours. To visit the SHOP ONLY - there is Not an entrance fee.
How long once I place my order online that I can receive it? Once an order is placed and we arrive at the shop Wednesday - Friday mornings we begin to pull your order and get it boxed up and labeled ready to be picked up by our usps. Remember we are closed on Mondays and Tuesdays so no orders are box up on these days. And if we get extremely busy on the weekends we might not be able to ship your order till that Wednesday. Once usps picks up our boxed orders it is all up to usps for delivery dates and times. We do ship usps priority - the fastest and best pricing we can get.
Am I allowed to pick the flowers/lavender while visiting? We all love flowers, but please do not pick our flowers without a purchased ticket. We have specific days for 'U-pick' lavender in June, zinnias in summer, and dahlias just before frost. We will announce 2024 dates by May to purchase your 'U-Pick' tickets online. We do not sell tickets at the shop for that day you arrived since all you-picks are scheduled and limited to quantity allowed in our you-pick fields. Anyone picking flowers without permission or a purchased ticket will be escorted off farm. Each flower is how we finance our farm and pay our employees. Please be respect and mindful.
How does 'U-pick' lavender work? Once we have an exact date of full bloom lavender we will make an announcement on our website and Facebook page. 'U-Pick' lavender will only be available during certain dates. For 2024 we will be selling tickets online and again are limited quantities to limit the amount of visitors in the field at one time. U-picks are only allowed in certain fields and will be marked off. You are not allowed to go outside of u-pick areas to pick. Please be respectful and be mindful of rules, since we may have a wedding we are picking for in other areas or flowers might not be quite ready.
Why are you open when your lavender is not in bloom? Yes! February 7-December 17th are open shop dates (Wednesday-Sunday). We are so much more than just a flower/lavender field farm. So many of the people wanted our lavender products we handcrafted here at the farm through the year, we opened up our own shop so visitors could enjoy our products all year. Some also to see a glimpse of the farm and see how the lavender changes, also well as our other flowers (zinnias, dahlias, and sunflowers) that allow you to see something in bloom at other times of the year. We also have our shop here at the farm where we make over 100 different lavender products for you to browse.
Do you offer group tours? Email us for reserving your tour for the months of March, April, September, and October only with parties of 10 or more. We can give your group attention to guide them around the farm and give information about the lavender and flowers. We are so busy during June, so we can only allow a very small number of groups at this time. Once it is full, groups will have to choose another month to get a tour.
Can I get married here? We would love to see weddings here, but unfortunately we are very small and do not have wedding venue. We do welcome wedding parties for photos at the lavender fields with reservations. Please contact us for more information and pricing. Check the photography page for more information.
How can I take the best pictures of Lavender from my cell phone? We highly recommend taking photos with your cell phones while visiting. To take a great picture of lavender you will need to bend down and take photos from the top of lavender to capture the beautiful purple buds during bloom. Be sure the person taking the photo has their back to the sun. Best times are when we first open up or near closing time. Once the sun is up high in the sky the sun will wash out the purple blooms of the lavender.
Can Professional Photographers take photos at the farm? We love to see photos of the farm, but we only allow pictures to be taken with your cell phone during open shop/farm. We do not allow mini sessions at the farm any longer, since it takes over our parking for regular visitors. We are extremely busy now that we have expanded and growing flowers, so do not have the extra time to have photographers after hours. Thank you for understanding. If you do want your photo taken professionally here at the farm we do have an in house photographer named Melissa Giles you may contact and set up an appointment.
Can I bring my dog with me*? Due to the nature of our farm and livestock, we do not allow pets on the farm. We have chickens that consider dogs as predators. We also grow culinary lavender and due to FDA guidelines we cannot allow dogs or pets onto the premises. We do sell culinary lavender to restaurants, tea companies, and distilleries. We want also want to respect other visitors to the farm that may be afraid of dogs and/or allergic to dogs. Dog urine will also kill lavender. *Service dogs: We do allow ADA service dogs, but please call us ahead of your arrival so we know when your ETA and can discuss information to you as well as inform our staff. Based on ADA service dogs guidelines emotional need does not qualify.
Is the farm wheelchair accessible? The shop and the front yard is wheelchair accessible and fairly flat. The back yard has grass between rows and the yard slants back to the woods making it difficult for wheelchairs to pass through.
I'm interested in growing lavender myself, where do I start? We host classes from April through the end of June to instruct how to grow lavender. Watch for sign up of classes once we have our year calendar and ticket available in February. Check out information about lavender here.
If you have any other questions feel free to contact us.
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