A blue state destination sign on Old Richmond Road catches your eye.
It says “Mom-Mom’s Lavender Farm,” and an arrow points towards Cleveland Road in Fayette County.
You pull into the driveway for Mom-Mom’s Lavender Farm, where the welcome sign proclaims, “Be kind to all.”
There’s a store with a porch and hanging flower baskets. The flowers are a bright white and purple.
Purple is a color that dominates the 10-acre lavender farm opened two-and-a-half years ago by Philip Santiago and his daughter-in-law, Patty Santiago.
Both are from Maryland, where it’s common to call a grandmother a Mom-Mom.
Patty says, “It's more northern. I think Pennsylvania does it too, but yeah, it's more up north.”
The Santiagos were inspired by Philip’s wife, Sue, who passed away a few years ago from brain cancer. They were married 53-three years. Philip gets emotional talking about Sue, a Mom-Mom.
“We both likedthe outside. We both liked doing things out in gardening and farming, etc. She always wanted lavender, and I was always too busy. So, when she passed from brain cancer, and I spent three years at home taking care of her for that, I was going to the house, and everything I touched was lavender, and it just says, wow. Okay, I got it. I'll do lavender. So anyway, she was a very special lady.”
Philip says his wife believed in kindness. When he and Patty created the lavender farm in Sue’s memory, they wanted kindness to be a central part of their business model.
“The idea of kindness plays through in the plants, the fact that they're natural, that they actually help people, they have a real purpose, they're very effective, the fact that we don't use chemicals that that we have sustainable agricultural practices. The lavender is a perennial. It keeps coming back. All those things are towards kindness, the fact that people can come here, and they can have a good time. I mean, the idea of the farm isn't to come here and sell you a bunch of stuff. It's for you to come here and enjoy yourself.”
Customers are encouraged to stroll along the many rows of various kinds of lavender growing behind the store. The purple plants, about 1100 of them, are two to three feet high and stretch in rows going down a hillside. Philip says lavender needs to grow in well-drained soil.
“If you don't have that, you're going to have trouble with anything you try to grow as far as lavender. And inside the state, you got a range of soil from 10 to one, where one is perfect, 10 is terrible. And it turned out, even though we didn't know it when we bought this farm where we put our lavender is all one. So, the main reason lavender fails inside Kentucky is too much water. It doesn't drain well, so we have that problem handled.”
It turns out Philip says that lavender has many uses, and an ancient history. “You go back 2,000, 3000 years, it was being used by the Egyptians. It was being used by every single ancient civilization. At that time, people understood the properties of lavender. The actual name lavender comes from Latin lavare which means to wash. Lavender was used as a main ingredient in washing because it smells good and it's antibacterial, so it really works well. So, it had those properties, but it also has properties of calming, of relaxing. It's great for sleep. It's great for burns. Absolutely phenomenal.”
The lavender fragrance and other tantalizing smells permeate the farm store. Shelves inside are stacked with lotions, oils, candles, and soaps made by Patty.
“There are soy candles. They're really a big hit. I make those. I make the decorative goat's milk, honey soap. I make the shea butter and the oatmeal soaps. They're the decoratives. And then I make the bars of soap. That's all goat's milk. And then I make the lotion bars, and that has shea butter in it and shea nut oil in it. That helps really keep it moist.”
The Santiago’s host festivals at the lavender farm that are listed on their website, https://mommomslavender.
Patty says one of the joys for her is getting to know their customers. “I get to meet some really amazing people, some really heartbreaking stories. And, you know, it just makes me be glad to be there for them and give them a hug or something, you know, because it just really touches me.” That kindness, Philip says, would make his late wife happy.
“She thought the most important thing we could do is be kind, teach kindness to children. If you can get that concept across, then you're gonna have nice, good people. And she really believed in it. Anyway, she was remarkable.”
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