Tucked away on a dirt road in Sonoma’s Wine Country in Healdsburg, CA, is a sweet private farm lovingly cared for called Sophie’s Five Acres. It’s caretakers Horace and Joan have been the stewards of this property for the last 30 years, supplying rare unusual flowers and plants to local businesses: Single Thread Farms, Dragonfly Floral, Healdsburg Farmers Market, our friends Sonoma County Bee Company and of course, Botnia Skincare.

This year, we’ve harvested over 60 pounds of English Lavender and Grosso Lavender from their farm to make a limited run of our special seasonal floral mist, Lavender Hydrosol. 

We feel so lucky to have this partnership in connection with our dear friends, Sonoma County Bee Company who has tended the bees on their farm in years past. This is the fifth year that our team has gathered lavender from Sophie’s Five Acres and it’s a day that we look forward to every year. Learn more about the history of Sophie’s Five Acres and the story of Horace and Joan in creating a floral haven among the redwoods in our Q&A below. 

Botnia: Well, hello! Thank you so much for having us here. We're so grateful and had the best time today. We’ve been looking forward to this day so, thank you. 

Joan & Horace: You're welcome. One of our favorite days of the year.

Botnia: Ours too. We're all very excited to hear more about your story of Sophie’s Five Acres. Let’s get right into it! When did you get the property?  

Horace: 1992. 

Botnia: What inspired this farm? How did this all happen? 

Joan: I was dead set on it. I wanted a country property as a weekend place. We lived in San Francisco and as soon as I saw the big open field, I said, “This is it. I have to have it,” you know?

Horace: Uh, it freaked me out.

Joan: Yeah, he was like, “Do you know what you're saying?” It was a two and a half mile dirt road, and it was just gonna be a fun weekend place. Then the weekends got longer and we started working part time up here and fixing the place up. We moved full time in 1998.  

Botnia: Wow. Why'd you land on lavender? 

Horace: We didn't know what else to plant. I think the first lavender festival was in 2000, so it was like in the late 90s. We did cover cropping for about three years to get the soil replenished. We did that with the idea that we would then plant lavender. Because she had this dream. I had a fantasy, but it was also that we couldn't decide what we were going to grow. And I thought, the deer won't eat lavender. It's easy to grow. It's drought tolerant. Let's start with lavender and figure it out.

Botnia: Oh my gosh, that's so dreamy. And what other plants do you guys grow on the property? I've seen such a beautiful selection, but is there a second plant that has the most abundance? 

Horace: In terms of selling - peonies, no doubt about it. It's a beautiful crop. It's in high demand. Lower maintenance than lavender even. That's our second best crop. I mean, lavender was at first, but, what else? We have dahlias in the summer that come on later because the peonies come on early in the season. 

Joan: Then everything we planted here can be used in floral arrangements. All the shrubs, everything. We always planned it that way. I have a soft spot for anything nobody else has. So there's a lot of unusual plants. I love it. It's beautiful.

Botnia: Where did you sell it? Was it at a local farmer's market?

Horace: Yeah, the Healdsburg Farmers Market. We did that for 13 years? I think so, yeah. And then when we quit the market, then we sold exclusively to Single Thread. Until they got their farm up and running, we were selling to them, and Dragonfly. 

Botnia: Why is the yearly Botnia harvest so special to you? 

Horace: Because the lavender is very special to us and I really only want to share what I have with people who can appreciate it. I can see that Botnia does appreciate it really well. You love it as much as we do. It's just so much fun and we enjoy the youthful energy.

 Botnia: What are your favorite Botnia products? 

Joan: I love them all. Can't you tell? I use all the goodies. I love the moisturizer. The Rose Hydrosol. The Rose Geranium Hydrosol. The Wisdom oil. Oh gosh. All of them. 

Horace: Yeah, you do. She's always saying this.

Botnia: Oh, man. I'm blushing. Seriously! Oh my gosh. Well, thank you so much. Have you done anything differently to create more diversity this year?

Horace: No, it's just this year there's more for some reason. The rain. The spring was a mild one.  Yeah, I mean, we've got more butterflies than ever. They've been hanging around for months now. Oh, and the birds, I mean, we have more birds. Chickadees are abundant. Sparrows, I mean, finches, the yellow finch, it's just amazing. It's great, except well, they do poop. 

Joan: They poop and they poke holes in your irrigation. 

Horace: Yeah, my drip line, they've been poking holes. Someone has, so I think it's a bird. Robins. Oh, man. And we've got migrating woodpeckers. That we had never had before and, and they're smaller, but they're just all over. 

Botnia: What did you learn about them that you looked up recently?

Horace: Their habitat was decreased because of the fires. And so we've had more and more here. We might've seen one or two. Now we're seeing hundreds. Wow. I mean, they're just all over in the trees and so it's, yeah, anyhow, it's fun. 

Botnia: That's really cool. Can you tell me more about specifically what you do for the soil for lavender and what you found to be really helpful?

Horace: Lavender takes care of itself really. In terms of the soil, we just prepped it really well to begin with. And at this point, it gets fertilizer once a year, comes spring early, and it's an organic fertilizer that lasts about seven months. But it gets watered, even in the summer, it doesn't get more than once or twice a month.

Botnia: So it's very low water?

Horace: Yep. The main thing you want is soil that drains really well. It doesn't like to sit in water. So we've been lucky. As it gets older, you need to replace it. We're at that stage with quite a few of them.

Botnia: Is there anything that surprised you about having this piece of land and growing these flowers?

Horace: Oh, everything. We have had a lot to learn. Yeah, it's a constant learning experience. It really is. Any farmer will tell you that. Early on we learned that we needed to talk to farmers. We'd go to the farmer's market and we'd talk to them about it. What are they doing? How do they grow this? It just gave us a better understanding of how to handle the soil and stuff. So it's listening to people. Everybody has knowledge of some kind that helps.

So, we've been really fortunate, but you know there are different levels of soil out here. So  when we first got rid of the cover crop and we tilled everything in, you could see there's a dark color for maybe 50 feet. And then there's a lighter color, and there's more rock at one end, so in planting, you gotta plant toward that. Because, because this was more subtle, and this one was all the rock, you couldn't plant much there, and you had to have more water there, because it drained so well. So, you learn those things. 

Botnia: And working with your ecosystem, that's so important.

Horace: Oh yeah. You don't plant something that wouldn't naturally do well in one spot over another. And if you lose any plants, you lose some because they're not planted to the right spot.

Botnia: What is your favorite flower? 

Horace: That's interesting. That's a good question. I'll have to think about that one. I'm not sure.  What's yours?

Joan: I don't have favorites. It's like saying, what's your favorite child? You know?

Botnia: I do know. People always ask me, what's your favorite Botnia product? And I'm like, what? They are literally all from my heart. They are my babies. How could I pick a single one? But some of them I do love more than others. For cut flowers, I really love the black eyed susans.

Horace: Those are so beautiful. You know I was thinking, my favorites are different though. Because it depends on when they're in bloom, the time of year. But there's so many delights. I come out and just the shrubs make me feel good. The color that comes on them and plants are just amazing, they really are. That's a part of the joy of getting up in the morning and being out at 6 o'clock.