Cultivating dollars and scents

CLYDE HILL

Janice Cipriano Brehm digs lavender.

Literally.

Brehm's wholesale-only Heaven scent Lavender Farm flourishes in Clyde Hill, a town noted for high-end houses, not low-growing herbs. The throwback to 60 years ago, when Clyde Hill was farms and orchards, sits hidden at the end of a long private lane.

Just east of Heavenscent stands a new megahouse with a swimming pool in the back yard. To the north lies traffic-jammed Highway 520. A row of trees buffers the sound, allowing Brehm to concentrate on her plants.

Concentrate she does.

She lavishes attention on her 3-year-old lavender plants, almost as if they were beloved pets. She tends them, weeds around them, waters them and watches them grow. She knows their common names, their scientific names and even their personalities - the early bloomers, late bloomers and prolific producers. She lovingly describes the plants as little hedgehogs.

Brehm even pets the blooming plants. She rubs her hands along some purple-tipped flower stalks.

"Smell," she says to a visitor. "Rubbing the flowers releases the oil, and it smells wonderful."

The idea for her part-time business was planted in her heart during a trip to Sequim, Clallam County, in 1997. She and her husband, Keith, were going to visit an aunt. They stopped at a you-pick lavender farm, where she fell in love with the herb prized by early Egyptians, Greeks and Romans.

Brehm left three hours later, brimming with enthusiasm, eager to learn more and to start a lavender farm. She spent the winter studying lavender and organic farming.

She had land, one-third acre in Clyde Hill that her mother-in-law owned but wasn't using.

It drained well, got plenty of sun and had been enriched by the family's horses for almost 50 years.

Brehm, who lives in Bellevue, found the first problem was getting in touch with the dirt.

Hours were spent clearing blackberry vines and digging up the roots. Brehm's husband, Keith, and the couple's three elementary-school-age sons were enlisted. The extended family added muscle power. They plowed and then brought in sand.

"You could tell we're rookie farmers," said Keith Brehm. "We rented a Bobcat to spread the sand. But the Bobcat tore up what we plowed and made a mess. So we ended up wheel-barrowing all four dump trucks of sand and spreading it by hand."

The sand, explained Janice Brehm, reflects the sun and warms the lavender, producing better plants.

They installed a watering system and in 1998 planted several varieties of lavender.

Brehm babied them along. Her first harvest was last year.

"We had no clue we'd make any money," she said. "When I called my first customer, Bert's Red Apple in Madison Park, they asked me to bring a couple of hundred bunches of lavender."

Brehm suggested 50, preferring to take a more conservative wait-and-see if they sell attitude.

Folks at the Seattle store insisted upon a couple of hundred.

"They all sold in the first day," Brehm said. "I was amazed."

This year she trimmed the list of retailers to ease distribution and delivery. Because Heaven scent Farms has so many kinds of lavender, a different one blooms every two weeks. The staggered production means harvesting can be handled by a few people - still all in the family at this stage.

One season of experience gave Brehm a bouquet of knowledge. After seeing what worked - and didn't - she has dug up and replaced a couple of varieties.

Although she personally hasn't met a lavender she doesn't like, it's easier to harvest and market long-stem lavenders.

"There are green, pink, yellow and white varieties," she says, "but I like the purple ones. Purple has always been my favorite color."

That's apparent.

Brehm wears a pair of purple clogs with her overalls; she keeps track of appointments and her three sons' activities in a lavender-colored daytimer.

She describes herself as a farmer, not a gardener.

"My yard is a mess," she said. "When a high-school girlfriend found out what I'm doing, she laughed."

She laughs at herself, describing the first harvests when she spent hours hand-picking and then stripping leaves off each stem.

"I learned no one else stripped the leaves," she said. "Then we learned we could cut the bunches with scythes instead of using scissors. It is faster. There's been a learning curve."

Even so, by the end of her first production season last year, Brehm had recouped her $10,000 investment. She proudly said she pays people in the family for helping harvest and prepare the blossoms for delivery.

Meanwhile, she keeps experimenting with new uses for lavender, from adding it to lemonade to rubbing lavender oil on insect bites. Lions and tigers are said to become docile from the scent of lavender water. It has been used for medicinal purposes. And, according to folklore, it wards off demons, curses and other evils.

Brehm's favorite tale, however, enforces another aspect of lavender lore.

"I delivered some bunches to Bert's recently," she said. "Before we left, a couple had bought a bouquet. She was carrying it out, and he put his arm around her and kissed her.

"Lavender is known as the herb of love."

For Brehm, it's also the herb of flexibility, giving her an ideal part-time job.

"I like being at home and having time to volunteer in my children's classrooms (at Enatai Elementary School)," she said. "This way I can work and stay home, too."