When to see the lavender in bloom

Lavender does not bloom everywhere at the same time. The higher you go, the later it flowers: by following the altitudes, you can see fields in bloom for more than a month.

A calendar that follows altitude

• Mid-June to mid-July: the large lavandin fields of the lower plateaus, such as Valensole, flower first.
• July: the true lavender of the high plateaus, around Sault and on the Albion plateau, takes over. In front of Sénanque Abbey, near Gordes, the rows are usually in bloom around the same time.
• Late July and August: the harvest moves on. On 15 August, Sault’s lavender festival often marks the end of the season.

These markers vary by one or two weeks from year to year: a warm spring brings flowering forward, a cold, wet spring delays it. Tourist offices publish the state of the fields every summer.

The best hours

The softest light is early in the morning and at the end of the day. In mid-afternoon the purple flattens under the sun and the heat is strong. In the evening there are fewer bees and the scent hangs over the rows.

Look without harming

Lavender fields are crops, not scenery. A few simple rules:

• stay at the edge or on the paths, without walking between the rows;
• don’t pick sprigs: it is someone’s harvest;
• park without blocking farm machinery;
• watch out for bees, which are everywhere during flowering.

And at night?

Under the Moon, a lavender field loses its colour but keeps its scent. On moonless July nights the Milky Way rises in the south, just above the rows: that is the view from our Lavender Bubble, imagined for exactly that moment.