For those of you who come here to learn about blogging and business, please go to the next blogger on your dance card. This post is about about the Lavender Farm I visited with my wife and her mom ( in Maui last week.
I promise to be back on-topic over the next few days, but for those of you may someday find yourself in Maui, and want to experience an off -touristy paths, you might drive about 90 minutes from the main tourist places to experience
this commercial farm primarily raising more than a dozen variations of this fragrant, medicinal, edible herb.
If there is any connection at all my usual topics, it one of entrepreneurialism.
Alii Kula, is Hawaiian born of Chinese blood. He is the son and grandson of flower raisers, cutters and floral arrangers. Alii worked for many years cutting and arranging flowers. It was the same job his father had held. He decided he wanted to use the talent that was his to create something that was his. He went off on his own.
Alii went upcountry from the commercial gardeners and started buying acreas from a cattle rancher. Alii bought the land because it was on top of Mt Haleakala where the soil is rich in iron and volcanic deposits. Some say, you can drop a walking stick into the soil and it will sprout. It was a girlfriend, a Maui Opera falsetto who gave him his first lavender sprig. The sprig became fruitful and multiplied. The beauty is a bonus, the farm grows the core element in dozens of products from pefume, to mosquito repellents, to medicinal cpomponents--lavender has show some positive signs in fighting early stage breast cancer, for example.
The frosting on it is that the property has one of the most breathtaking panoramic views I’ve seen. The high-altitude farm spills over miles into an all-too-blue ocean.
You can take walking tours, as we did, and they are as informative as they are fragrant. They have breakfast of lavender-something tea and scones, lavender cooking classes, wreath-making classes, or you can just go up there and stroll about on your own for free. You can buy almost every lavender based poroduct ever conceived including an organic mosquito repellent.
I’m told that most guys come up to the mountain being dragged by the scalp of their spouses or spousal equivalents. Lavender just doesn’t sound like a guy thing. My advice, if you are of the male persuasion is to get past it.
This place is a thing of beauty. Catch it if you can.
