Some small growers tend a few dozen plants in their backyard or indoors in buckets, and are happy to make a few hundred dollars.
Larger operations on acreage can bring in hundreds of thousands, especially if they also produce and sell value-added products (soaps, sprigs, oils).
Purple Haze Farms, in Sequim, Washington, for example, routinely grosses over a million dollars a year with about 8 acres of lavender. Fresh lavender bouquets are a very profitable way to sell lavender.
Most growers sell direct to the retail public (craft stores, florists), either from their garden or at the local farmer’s market. At our local Sunday farmer’s market, lavender bunches sell for $6 each. A 20′ x 20′ growing area can produce around 300 bunches each year, worth $1,800.
Larger plots are even more profitable. A quarter-acre can produce about 3,000 bunches, worth $18,000. Unsold lavender bunches can be dried and sold to crafters and florists, who use the bunches for dried floral arrangements.
Also, the flower buds can be removed from the bunches and sold or used to make sachets and other value-added products. Other lavender products, such as lotions, oils and soaps, bring 500% or more markups from the price of the basic ingredients.
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