Visitors to Red Oak Lavender Farm can cut lavender from the fields just one day a year.

More than 2,000 plants and 20 varieties grow at the Dahlonega farm owned by Tina Misko.

“Lavender is so cool because you can make so many different things from it,” Misko said.

It can be used to repel mosquitoes or even make sachets.

“It’s just amazing all the different uses for it and how good and calming the properties are,” she said.

At 10 a.m. Saturday, June 10, Misko will open her field to the public for the third annual Lavender Festival.

“We allow people to come into the fields and cut their own lavender bouquets,” Misko said. “Or they can create their own lavender wand or halo.”

The festival allows visitors to see lavender growing locally, which is a treat for Georgia residents, Misko said, because lavender isn’t so easy to grow in Georgia.

“It’s really hard growing lavender because lavender does not like to get the roots wet,” she said. “With everything I’ve learned and tried over the years, our lavender is growing.”

The farm has been around for four years, and it was actually her late husband, Bill Misko, who inspired her to grow the plant.

“We ended up growing lavender because my husband had heart issues,” she said. “He had heart complications due to Agent Orange, so he couldn’t do a lot of work.”

So Misko wanted to do something for him with their property, and she thought of a lavender field.

“I thought, ‘I’ve always grown lavender in my front garden. Why can’t I do this on a little bit bigger scale?’” she said. “So I researched for a year and then we bought our baby plants from Washington state.”

And since their first purchase of plants, the field has grown quite a bit.

Misko said their first area was 90 by 100 feet with 500 plants, but now it’s grown to over 2,000 lavender plants in the ground.

“My husband passed away last year due to complications (with) his heart issue,” Misko said. “And because everybody just loves the lavender when they come to the field, and (it’s) just so relaxed and so serene and it just gives them peace, I wanted to keep doing this for the community so that they have a place they can actually see lavender being grown.”