SEQUIM — The newly formed Sequim Lavender Farmers Association will base its July fair at Carrie Blake Park and the James Center for the Performing Arts, christening it “Lavender in the Park.”
“We’re really excited to connect the park with the farms,” said Executive Director Scott Nagel, who is wrapping up a week of talks on Sequim lavender agri-tourism at the Australian Lavender Growers Association 16th annual International Conference in Launceston, Tasmania.
While Carrie Blake Park’s parking lot will be the central hub for tour buses for the farm tours, Nagel said, Guy Cole Community Center’s space would be used for management and other needs during the July 15-17 event.
The original lavender festival organization, Sequim Lavender Growers Association, will operate its street fair on Fir Street separately near downtown — and won’t have guided farm tours.
Those were overseen by Nagel, who recently left the growers association to join the farmers association.
The farmers association broke away from the original association last month, citing philosophical and administrative differences with that association and its board president, Terry Stolz.
“Officially, we wish them luck,” Stolz said Wednesday after learning about the new festival venue.
Stolz’s group is about to announce its new director to succeed Nagel, he said, which would be part of what he called “Team Lavender,” to run the growers association’s event.
Stolz said the growers association still has a contract with the city to use Fir Street from Second Avenue to North Sequim Avenue.
“We’ve got 150 spaces on the street,” he said of the festival marketplace that has been there 15 years.
Stolz said his only concern was that signage might cause confusion, but other than that, he believes the lavender show will go on.
At the new lavender fair at Carrie Blake Park, Nagel said, the James Center band shell will be used to showcase entertainment.
Booths with food and crafts, a wine and beer garden, a nonprofit community area with family activities and programs from the WSU Master Gardener program also are planned, Nagel said.
Buses will take visitors to all six farms on the tour, he said.
The six festival tour farms that left the growers association to form the farmers association are:
• Cedarbrook Lavender & Herb Farm, owned by Gary and Marcella Stachurski.
• Jardin du Soleil Lavender, Pam and Randy Nicholson.
• Olympic Lavender, Bruce Liebsch and Mary Borland-Liebsch.
• Port Williams Lavender, Michael and Sue Shirkey.
• Purple Haze Lavender, Mike and Rosalind Reichner and Vickie Oen.
• Sunshine Herb & Lavender Farm, Steve and Carmen Ragsdale.
In his past six years of experience with the Sequim Lavender Festival, Nagel said he has repeatedly heard people suggest that the event be moved to Carrie Blake Park.
Nagel was the keynote speaker at the Australia lavender conference, talking about “Tourism: Panacea or Paradox, The Sequim Perspective.”
“I told them we all belong to an international lavender movement,” Nagel said Wednesday, adding that knowledge of Sequim as the U.S. lavender capital “is all over the world.”
Nagel said he learned a lot from his visit to Australia and will bring new ideas back to the farmers association.
How to help improve the valley’s tourism draw was among those ideas.
“I established relations with people all over the world,” he said.
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Sequim-Dungeness Valley Editor Jeff Chew can be reached at 360-681-2391 or at jeff.chew@peninsuladailynews.com.
