Growing Lavender
One of the first recorded uses is from the ancient Egyptians who used it as a central ingredient in incense. They even used it in embalming the dead.
But if we assume you don’t want to use it for this purpose, but rather grow it in your garden what are the basic things you need to know.
Lavender Growing Conditions
Full sunlight is essential to grow a great smelling lavender plant. The more shade you give it – the softer and leggier the plant will be. Soft leggy plants do not have nearly the same perfume intensity as their sun-garden counterparts.
Well drained soils are essential. You can grow lavender in almost any soil that is well-drained. Particularly if well-drained during the winter months. This means that clay soils will pretty much kill lavenders because they hold too much moisture during the winter.
Feeding is pretty much optional. I generally try to give mine a shovel of compost in the spring but that’s about it. Like many herbs, the tougher you grow them, the more concentrated the essential oil in the leaves, and this is what we want.
Good Lavender Varieties
Is there such a thing as a bad one ? :-)
L. angustifolia – the English lavenders – are some of the hardiest and easiest to overwinter. Examples of these would be ‘Munstead’ and ‘Hidcote’. These are usually hardy into USDA 4 if grown well.
L. x intermedia is a cross between L. angustifolia and the more tender L. latifolia. These are excellent growing plants but are marginally hardy in USDA zone 5-6. Examples would be ‘Provence’ and ‘Grosso’
L. stoechas is the French lavender and it is quite tender – hardy into USDA 7 / 9 but a tender annual in the north. New varieties are stunningly beautiful and the reds of ‘Kew Red’ or grey leaves of “Goodwin Creek Gray’ live only in my warm-spot overwintered containers.
Those are the basics of growing lavender in the home garden.
If you're interested in container growing or propagation, click on the ebook link and check out the ebook I wrote about this amazing plant.
Do you have a question about Growing Lavender?
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