Willow Pond Farm Herbs & Everlastings

I have been to every Lavender Festival and have enjoyed them all, but they are getting too big. Ultimately, their success may be their undoing. The farm is too small to comfortably accomodate five thousand or more people in just 3 days! The first few festivals were small and friendly, but now they are getting impersonal. However, they are still worth attending just for Tom's garden tour, the gardens themselves, and the lectures. The lunch lines on Saturday are too long, but guess there's nothing they can do about that, except maybe add an additional food vendor so there'd be 2 shorter lines. However, personally, from now on I'm going to eat elsewhere before or after the festival as I'd rather spend that time in the gardens or at a lecture, instead of waiting for a so-so sandwich (the filling in mine last time was good, but my bread was stale). Or I'll go Friday or Sunday AM when they first open to avoid the crowds. I have also been there twice with a group and was very satisfied with Madeleine's delicious lunch, Tom's garden tour and the overall experience. Oh yes, one complaint I do have about the Lav. Fest. is that the lavender plants are arranged by variety and the visitors evidently pick them up and move them around and the staff did not monitor this and move them back where they belong, so it is too easy to get a wrong variety. However, the Wadjas work very hard to try to make everything at the festival run smoothly. It is an experience that every lavender lover or dedicated herb grower should treat themselves to at least once, especially if they can't get to one of the west coast lavender festivals..