Rose Valley

The M'Goun river runs down from the Atlas through Kelaat M'Gouna and the villages above it, and along the irrigation channels between the barley and the almond the farmers grow Rosa damascena in dense hedges - originally as living field boundaries, and now as the crop the district is known for. The harvest runs for about ten days in late April and early May: the flowers are picked before sunrise, when the oil content is highest and the heat has not opened them, carried down in sacks, and sold by weight to the distilleries in Kelaat M'Gouna which produce rose water and, in far smaller quantity, the essential oil - it takes on the order of three to five tonnes of petals to make a kilogram of it. A festival in the town at the end of the harvest fills it. The rest of the year the valley is an ordinary and pleasant gorge road with kasbahs and gardens.

What you actually see

• Roses as field hedges - Damascena grown along irrigation channels between crops.
• A pre-dawn harvest - flowers picked before the sun for about ten days.
• Distilleries in the town - rose water and, in tiny quantity, the oil.
• The May festival - the town filling at the end of the picking.

When to go

Late April to mid-May for the harvest and festival. A day or two.

Honest expectations

The flowering window is about ten days and shifts by year with the weather - arriving wrong means bare hedges. Festival accommodation books out and prices rise. Much of the rose product sold to visitors is diluted rose water rather than oil; genuine oil is very expensive for good reason. Summer here is hot and the valley is dry.

Nearby

The Dades gorge is east; Skoura's palm grove is west.