Since August 2020, the Hoene homestead has gone through a transformation.
Tom Hoene turned part of a smokehouse into an enclosed shop for his wife, Tina, to sell fresh and dry lavender and other lavender products.
He also put siding on their home and created a greenhouse area for Tina to work on plants in the winter.
On Saturday, they will be able to showcase all of that work when The Little Lavender Place LLC officially opens for business at 10522 N. County Road 300E, Seymour.
From 11 a.m. to 6 p.m., the retail shop will be open selling homemade lavender products, including lavender-infused olive oils and balsamics, coffees, teas, beard oil and wax and shaving products for men, lip balm, body spray, lotions, candles, jars, greeting cards and T-shirts.
Tina also hopes to have fresh and dry lavender available, local food vendors Jalapeno’s Grill and Lot Hill Dairy Farm will be onsite and there will be a raffle for a basket filled with lavender goods.
“I’m hoping that it will be ready,” Tina said of the lavender. “I probably won’t know until the day of. You’ve got to get it at that right time. It depends on the weather. The rain was good, but it also needs sunshine.”
The Little Lavender Place’s regular hours will be 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Wednesdays through Saturdays.
Tina said having her own shop has been a goal for a while. In 2008, she started with plants and making products.
“The empty nest syndrome, all of my children had left home, and I needed something to do,” she said. “Obviously, flowers are my passion. That’s where it started.”
In 2015, a year after she and Tom moved into their home, they put plants in the ground.
“It’s trial and error, and they grew from there,” Tina said. “Sometimes, you don’t know what varieties grow here and what doesn’t.”
Tom said they found the clay soil in the area wasn’t fit for lavender, so they had several triaxle truckloads of sandy soil brought in to mix with it.
“Lavender is a Mediterranean plant. That’s where it originates, so it doesn’t like its feet wet,” Tina said. “You’ve got to have good drainage.”
She sold products to family and friends and later had them available for purchase at a shop in Columbus.
“You didn’t really think there would be a market for it, but there is,” Tina said. “The people’s interest is a lot bigger than what you think. When the fresh is out, that’s what they want.”
Lavender, however, has a short season.
“It’s June and July,” Tina said. “You’re going to get your biggest cuttings like right now, and probably when I’m open, I’m going to be out there cutting because it’s almost ready. Then you might get a second cutting, but I save it for the bees.”
Last season, she had people constantly calling her about fresh lavender, which includes Provence, phenomenal, sensational and Melissa.
“We didn’t have a shop or anything for them to come to that was open to the public,” she said.
That’s when Tom got to work on making Tina’s dream a reality.
“I took the front of the smokehouse off and had a three-car carport basically, and she wanted a shop I enclosed and poured concrete,” Tom said. “Most of the wood came from this woods (behind their home) from dead poplar trees, so we repurposed. Poplar doesn’t make good firewood. It burns too fast, and so we were able to salvage a lot of it.”
Tina likes how it turned out.
“The more rustic and old this looks, the more I like it,” she said. “That’s kind of the look we like.”
Tom retired from the Seymour Fire Department, and Tina left her job at Schneck Medical Center in January to focus her attention on creating the lavender business.
“It has been nonstop,” she said. “It’s a full-time project. There’s no way I could work and do this at the same time.”
While starting a business created some fear and was a little overwhelming, Tina said she’s fortunate to be a member of the U.S. Lavender Growers Association because she has been able to make connections around the country.
Last year, she sold lavender to a woman in Iowa who was getting ready to open her shop but didn’t have any lavender.
“They are just a walking encyclopedia of knowledge,” Tina said of fellow association members.
“For the longest time making my candles, I couldn’t get it right. I just didn’t get that fragrance,” she said. “I reached out to a fellow in Pennsylvania, and he makes lavender candles for all of these farms. We worked back and forth, and finally, he’s like, ‘Your wicks were too small. They don’t burn hot enough.'”
Her connections also have allowed her to be a distributor of lavender products to sell in her shop.
Along with continuing to grow lavender, the Hoenes hope to get honey from a beehive Horselick Creek Apiary owner Brian Hessong placed on their property to make lavender honey, and they want to have a you-pick option for sunflowers they are currently growing.
“I hope I am able to continue to expand the lavender,” Tina said. “We hope for the best.”
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What: The Little Lavender Place LLC opens to the public
When: 11 a.m. to 6 p.m. Saturday (regular hours will be 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Wednesdays through Saturdays)
Where: 10522 N. County Road 300E, Seymour
Who: Tina Hoene is the owner
Details: The retail shop will be open selling homemade lavender products, local food vendors Jalapeno’s Grill and Lot Hill Dairy Farm will be onsite and there will be a raffle for a basket filled with lavender goods
Information: Call 619-851-5143, visit thelittlelavenderplace.com or facebook.com/The-Little-Lavender-Place-LLC-100312268807338 or email [email protected]
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