22 types of lavender are highlight of garden tour

There are lots of garden tours in our area every year, but this one is different.
You take a drive along country roads in York County, S.C. Before long you're sitting in front of lavender fields, Italian cypress trees and a handsome Mediterranean-style home. It's a bit surreal.
Owner Chris Pinard, a landscape designer who was born in southern France, has planted more than 3,000 plants, including 22 types of lavender, 22 varieties of rosemary and around 50 different salvias.
You can sign up now for a tour of La Bastide des Lavandes, or the lavender homestead, for $25 at www.sclavender.com.
Pinard is booking 20 tours between May 31 and July 26, after which he plans to harvest the lavender.
If you've struggled with growing lavender and other Mediterranean herbs, you can learn from Pinard's technique for establishing these popular plants in our climate.
He plants lavender in winter in mounded rows of clay soil – with no special amendments. So there's hope that other Piedmont gardeners can have success with these plants, too.
In Charlotte, see more local residential gardens during “Art in the Garden,” presented April 26 and 27 by Charlotte Garden Club, www.charlottegardenclub.org.

Wing Haven's annual Gardener's Garden tour, May 10 and 11, also offers a peek at residential landscapes, www.winghavengardens.com.