Returning to Nature with Solilu: Our Lavender Cultivation and Aromatherapy Garden

Since the day we founded Solilu, we have had many dreams that we wanted to realize. One of these, and the biggest one, is to produce products that are in harmony with the nature we live in; reflecting the beauty of nature and our respect for it. We have been working to make this dream of ours come true for about three years. We started growing lavender to fulfill this wish. We are here with the products we produce with the Lavandula Angustifolia Sevtapolis and Lavandula Angustifolia Hemus lavenders that we grow.

So, how did our journey begin?

We based our dream with lavender on our Aromatherapy Garden, which we started to create about three years ago. We experienced many difficulties and discoveries during this process, but all of them were valuable steps for us.

As psychologists, we both believe in the integrity of soul-mind-body. We believe that as humans, our physical, mental and spiritual needs can only be addressed through a holistic approach.

I (Berksu) started doing research to protect my mental-physical health during the Covid-19 pandemic. This process introduced me to aromatherapy. My interest in scents increased even more with aromatherapy. Therefore, I started researching essential oils...

After completing my education, I started researching whether medicinal and aromatic plants grow in Türkiye. As a result of my research, I realized that the lands of Türkiye have a very rich flora in terms of medicinal and aromatic plants.

When we realized this wealth, we decided to take a step towards our ancestral lands as a family. Our grandfather's grandfathers migrated from the Caucasus to Anatolia in the 1860s. Since they lived in high altitude areas in the Caucasus, they preferred to settle in similar conditions when they came to Turkey.

One of the lands our ancestors chose as a settlement was our plateau village of Sarıcaova, which is 1300 meters above sea level. While medicinal plant cultivation is done in Türkiye, such cultivation was a foreign concept in our ancestral lands. Our village was generally a place where animal husbandry and agricultural activities were intensive, and especially products from the gramineous family were grown. At the same time, our plateau village, where our grandmothers and grandfathers were born and raised, and where our mother and father lived for a while, is a region where the difference between day and night temperatures is great. For this reason, we could predict in advance that not every plant would grow in our lands.

While wondering what plant could grow on our ancestral lands, one day we saw a plant in our mother's garden. The lavender plant changed our entire perspective. Lavender began to grow easily in our lands and its flowers were so beautiful that it made us look at this plant with a different perspective.

'When we came across Lavender, we decided this was the right way to go.'

Witnessing that the lavender plant can grow easily in our land encouraged us to grow lavender. Our concern of “What can grow in our field?” disappeared with the fragrant flowers of lavender. At this point, we decided that the medicinal plant we wanted to grow in our land would be fragrant lavender.

After this decision, we received the Medicinal and Aromatic Plant Cultivation training established by HerbaFarm Academy to learn the intricacies of medicinal plant cultivation. Thus, we gained enough knowledge to establish our aromatherapy garden and our lavender adventure began.