By Wendy Thompson
Two of the greatest and oldest perfumes in the world are made from roses and lavender.
Lavender oil has been used for more than 2000 years for bathing, washing, cooking, perfume and medicinal purposes.
It is believed the Romans gave lavender its name, taking it from the Latin word ‘lavare’ meaning ‘to wash’.
Around 600 BC the plant spread across Europe and during medieval and renaissance times, washing women who were known as ‘lavenders’ because of their use of the plant to scent clothing drawers and because they dried the washing on lavender bushes.
The plant comes in many varieties and the flowers range in colour from whites and pinks to many shades of blue and purple.
Lavender is now commonly used in England, France, Italy and Spain.
Bellbird Lavender Farm at Drouin West is a pretty picture at this time of the year with a spectacular show of blue lavender against a backdrop of rich green grass.
Owner and operator Peter Cliff grows 1.6 to 2 hectares of lavender, lavendin and rosemary on his 16-hectare property.
He harvests using a mechanical harvester he made himself and produces the three different oils that he sells through a variety of outlets outside the farm.
Peter is a dentist and started growing lavender about seven to eight years ago as a hobby.
The intention then was to fully mechanise lavender growing which, apart from a place in Tasmania, has hardly been done, and produce lavender oil for the commercial market.
He said about 30 to 40 tonnes of lavender oil is imported into Australia each year.
“It comes in from many countries including Bulgaria but most of it comes from France and because their farmers receive a subsidy for growing it they can bring it into this country well below our cost of production. This limits how much I grow.
“There’s little incentive when I can’t compete on price and I can’t afford to employ people to help me.
“Where Australian produced lavender oil can compare is on quality, which is far superior to most of what is imported.
“Some imported oil is good but historically there has been a lot of dilution and misrepresentation of these oils in the Australian market.
“Most of what the cottage industry in Australia and people like myself produce in is unadulterated, very high quality oil and I think the public are only just starting to discern the difference.”
He said he grows his lavender almost organically.
“I try hard to do that but I have to use a small amount of herbicide in places which precludes the notion that I am totally organic although I do use a weeder I have made for the tractor to do 90 per cent of the weed control.”
He grows a small amount of rosemary just for fun and says he harvests it the same way as the lavender.
“I have a friend who sells oils at the farmers’ markets and they sell about one bottle of rosemary oil to about eight to 10 of lavender oil.
“Some people are very keen on it but it is a more limited market.
“I wouldn’t recommend ingesting rosemary oil because I don’t know much about it.”
Peter built the harvester himself when he first started growing lavender.
“The reason I did that is because the design of the harvester was to have a large bearing on the layout of the lavender beds,” he said.
“I grow it in hedgerows very close together.
Two months ago, the plants were only about 40 centimetres high, which is what the machine cuts them back to but now there is about a metre of growth around each plant.”
Peter grows Tuscan blue Rosemary, lavendula angustifolia and lavendula x intermedia grosso.
“There are many varieties of lavendula intermedia and lavendula angustifolia the latter being the true lavender,” he said.
“We label and market it according to the Lavender Growers Association and that is labelling the lavendula intermedia which is a hybrid as lavendin as apposed to lavender.
“This is the way French lavenders are sold and we have adopted it.”
The intermedia, like most hybrids, have hybrid vigour and are a hardy plant that produces about five times more oil per kilogram of flower than the angustifolia.
“I have the oil analysed each year and the difference in the analysis is the amount of camphor,” he said.
“The intermedia has 6 to 8 per cent camphor which can’t be ingested, but for all other general usage it’s an excellent product.
“It’s probably not quite as captivating as the others are but because of its greater yield, it’s cheaper.
The angustifolia, however, can be put it into cakes, chocolates or ingested in almost any way because it is less than one per cent camphor.
The perfume of the angustifolia is sweeter than and not quite as aromatic as the intermedia.
“Frankly,” he said, “I don’t know much about what lavender is used for.
“I wanted the challenge of growing lavender and then mechanising it, which I have done, and then I joined The Australian Lavender Growers Association, where I have met many great people.
“I have been strongly involved in that since its first year.”
Peter doesn’t fertilise the lavender at all and said the plant likes soil with a ph as neutral as possible so he has used a large amount of lime and dolomite where it’s grown.
“It is a plant originally from the Mediterranean rim so it requires little water, in fact I hardly water at all, except when the plants are very young.”
Lavender doesn’t like wet feet so he grows it on hills and it’s not particularly prone to pests although he said he has the occasional problem with the crop which he cannot explain. For example bushes sometimes die and he cannot always assert why.
He said he purchased the original stock from a good source and propagated plants for the rest of the farm in a hot house.
He said his son helps him harvest in December.
The lavender is blown from the harvester through a chute and into a still that sits on a trailer.
“We leave the shed and get back with a full still in half an hour and it takes about an hour to distil each load.
“It is important that the lavender is well compacted otherwise I don’t get an even steam distribution during the distilling.
“I also have to have sufficient steam to drive the oil off without any reflux back through the load.”
He produces about 100 kilograms of oil a year which, he said, is not a huge amount, and sells it throughout the eastern states.
“I sell to some who export it, some who sell it in nurseries, other lavender farms that are open to the public and therefore can’t produce enough of their own oil to sell, and oil traders in the suburbs.
“Many buyers often change the name of the oil and purchase it from me in bulk.”
Peter purchased his property in 1997.
“When I first came here there was only a hayshed,” he said.
“I have worked as a dentist for 29 years and had practices in Drouin, Warragul and other places right through the region until three years ago when I sold my business and started working for others.
“I am now working in Morwell.
“I find there is such a big demand for dentists I could go forever but if the economics were more favourable and I didn’t have to compete with subsidies, I would swap dentistry for more lavender farming.
