The Closest Lavender Fields To Los Angeles
About 1.5 hours outside of LA lies a beautiful lavender farm at Highland Springs Ranch in Cherry Valley, California. I’ll share more on the rest of the farm in another post, but for now, I’d like to focus on the Lavender field. I’ve always wanted to visit one and see the rows and rows of beautiful lavender always set in front of the most gorgeous backdrops, and Highland Springs Ranch was the closest one I found to LA, despite it still being a decent drive away.
We left early so we could arrive right when they opened at 10 am, and it was perfect because we were literally the first people there. Though people started trickling in while we were shooting, it was nice to have the field to ourselves for a little while to get some open shots. I’m going to digress a little to let you know that there will be bees everywhere if you plan to shoot there; it is a flower field after all. I’m talking 1000’s of bees. I have never seen so many in my life, and I really faced my fears that day. I didn’t go into the field as much as I wanted because of it, but if you’re not scared of bees, by all means, you can get right there. If you are allergic, I wouldn’t recommend going at all, depending on the severity of your allergy. Ok, back to the deets:
The fields are really beautiful and totally worth the drive, in my opinion. The best part is that there are other things to do around the farm, so you can really make a day of it. The staff is pretty hands-off, so you won’t have any problems shooting there, but NOTE you are not allowed to pick the lavender. They say the best time to visit a lavender farm is mid-June to August, but we went at the end of June, and many of the lavender had not yet bloomed, so I would recommend mid-July if you want more lavender blooms. We were still able to find nice pockets around, though. I dreamed of shooting at a lavender field for years now, so I’m so happy we made it happen, and it was even better having London there with me.
Check out my post on the other attractions on the farm HERE