Lavender Fields of Provence

Lavender rows on the Valensole plateau at sunset

The lavender of Provence flowers for about six weeks a year, and getting the timing right is the whole problem. Come in late May and you will find green rows; come in early August on the Valensole plateau and it has already been cut. This page is mostly about where and when.

Two different plants

Worth knowing before you go looking, because it decides where you should be:

  • True lavender (lavande fine) grows above 800 m, in irregular clumps rather than tidy hedges, and gives the fine oil used in perfume. It is the one with AOP status, from the Sault plateau and the Drôme.
  • Lavandin is a sterile hybrid of true lavender and spike lavender, grown lower down. It gives far more oil, of a coarser kind, used in soap and detergent — and it grows in the dense, uniform, waist-high rows of every photograph ever taken of Provence.

Almost all the famous fields are lavandin. That does not make them less beautiful; it does mean the shops selling “lavender” essential oil are usually selling lavandin.

Where to go

Plateau de Valensole

Lavender fields on the Valensole plateau

The big one: an open plateau east of Manosque, on the way to the Gorges du Verdon, where the fields run to the horizon with a stone farmhouse and a line of trees for scale. This is the image everyone comes for.

Flowering: mid-June to mid-July. Harvest often starts in the second week of July, and a field photographed on Monday can be cut by Wednesday.

Plateau de Sault

Lavender fields on the Sault plateau

Higher, north-east of Carpentras under Mont Ventoux, and this is where the true lavender is. Smaller fields, mixed with wheat, and a different kind of picture.

Flowering: mid-July to mid-August — two to four weeks behind Valensole. If you can only travel in late July, come here rather than to Valensole.

Abbaye de Sénanque

The Cistercian abbey near Gordes, with its field in front of the church, is the most photographed lavender in the world. It is a small field and a working monastery, and it is very crowded. Flowering: mid-June to mid-July.

Also

  • Drôme provençale — around Grignan and Nyons, the largest growing area of all, and much less visited than Valensole
  • Luberon — scattered fields around Bonnieux, Lagarde d’Apt and Ferrassières
  • Around the Verdon — the road from Valensole east combines the fields with the gorge

The calendar

Map of lavender flowering periods across Provence

  • Late May — green, nothing to see
  • Mid-June to early July — Valensole, the Luberon and Sénanque at their peak
  • Early to mid-July — harvest begins at Valensole; the plateau empties field by field
  • Mid-July to mid-August — Sault and the high Drôme, still in flower
  • After mid-August — cut everywhere

Dates move by a week or two with the season. The tourist offices of Valensole and Sault publish a flowering bulletin in June — check it a few days before you travel rather than trusting a fixed date.

Practical advice

  • Go at dawn or in the last hour of light. Midday sun flattens the colour, and the Valensole roads fill with cars and coaches from about ten.
  • The fields are private property and a crop. Walking into rows tramples the plants; growers have had increasing trouble with this and some have started fencing. Photograph from the edge.
  • Bees. A flowering lavender field is loud with them. They are busy and uninterested, but do not stand in the middle of a row if you are allergic.
  • A car is essential. There is no public transport to any of this.
  • Distilleries — several around Sault and Valensole open in summer and show the still working. This is the interesting half of the subject.

Festivals

  • Fête de la Lavande, Valensole — the third Sunday of July, with the harvest floats
  • Fête de la Lavande, Sault — 15 August, with a scything competition
  • Digne-les-Bains — a lavender corso in early August

What to buy

Dried bunches, honey, and the essential oil — check whether the label says lavande or lavandin, and whether it carries the AOP Huile essentielle de lavande de Haute-Provence. Soap is almost always lavandin, which is fine and is what it is for.

Combining it

Lavender fits into a Provence trip rather than justifying one on its own:

  • Valensole + Gorges du Verdon — the natural pairing, one road
  • Sénanque + Gordes + Roussillon — a day in the Luberon
  • Sault + Mont Ventoux — the high road, later in the season

See when to visit Provence and the natural sights of Provence.

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