Nancy Visits the Weleda Gardens!
I’m so excited to have just returned from a two-week adventure in Europe with my daughter Courtney. The primary purpose of our trip was to visit the Weleda Gardens in Schwabisch Gmund, Germany. Weleda is one of Living Beauty’s corporate partners, and we were invited to visit the gardens to help harvest calendula flowers and learn more about this amazing company.
The trip consisted of around 25 of us, mostly Weleda employees, contracted partners and a few families. As Weleda’s North American charitable partner, we were honored to be included and share this experience.
We arrived in Stuttgart, Germany, on June 23, and on the morning of Monday, June 24, took a shuttle to the small town of Schwabisch Gmund. Just outside the city sits the Weleda Gardens, where many flowers and herbs are grown to become the ingredients in Weleda’s skin care products. On Tuesday, our group spent several hours learning how to determine the calendula flowers that were ready for harvesting and the best way to pick them. Calendula flowers are used in the baby products created by Weleda, so sometime down the road, a little baby will have lotion thanks to our picking skills!
Calendula are harvested between 9 and 11 in the morning, when the sun is right and the flowers are the most open. It was fun to take our buckets down the rows of calendula and fill them up. Our group harvested three big bins of flowers in just a couple of hours. Those flowers went immediately to the pressing room on the Weleda grounds to be pressed into oil.
We also toured the gardens and learned about the biodynamic gardening Weleda uses to ensure that all products are naturally raised and cultivated. And instead of mowing the grass, a flock of goats helps keep the garden grasses in check!
We learned about Weleda’s other growing areas as well, including a remote mountain in Romania where the arnica is grown to press into arnica oil for Weleda products. Weleda is heavily invested in the community there, helping to provide a school to educate the next generation of farmers. They gather pomegranates in Italy from naturally grown trees and healthy fruits. We had skincare sessions and learned more fully about the variety of products Weleda offers. Court and I transitioned to Weleda skincare products, and we are loving the difference in our skin!
After saying goodbye to this wonderful new group of friends, Court and I traveled by train to Austria, France, and the Netherlands. It was the trip of a lifetime with my girl!
We want to thank Weleda for our amazing partnership, and the support and love they show for Living Beauty. Weleda is a company that is very mindful about the way they source their products, and model very closely Living Beauty’s philosophy about women’s health and wellness. Again this year, Weleda will be sponsoring our Goddess Wellness Retreat in November, and we are grateful to be part of the Weleda family.
