Lavender
Lavandula species. LAMIACEAE (LABIATAE).
Planting and Growing Lavender
You’ll find everything you need to know to plant and grow lavender in the accompanying table’s tabs:
-
- Flowers, foliage, and root structure of lavender
- Plant hardiness and growing conditions for lavender
- Season of bloom and planting time for lavender
- When, how deep, and where to plant lavender
- How to plant lavender
- Watering, fertilizing, care, and pests or diseases of lavender
- Landscape and container uses of lavender
- Comments about lavender and its features
Growing Lavender
About 20 species and many hybrid cultivars of dense, upright, semi-evergreen perennial herbs and shrubs, 1–4 ft. (30–120 cm) tall. Woolly, gray to gray green, needlelike leaves, to 2 in. (50 mm) long.
Commonly cultivated species include English lavender, Lavandula angustifolia; French lavender, Lavandula dentata; Spanish lavender, Lavandula stoechas; and sweet lavender, Lavandula X heterophylla.
Planting and Care Guide
Blooms
Many tiny, blue, pink, purple, fragrant flowers, in dense, plumelike clusters, to 10 in. (25 cm) long, in summer.
Best Climates
Semi-hardy. Plant as annual, zones 5–6; ground hardy, zones 7–10.
Soil Type and Fertility
Damp to dry, well-drained soil. Fertility: Average–low. 6.5–7.5 pH.
Where and How to Plant
Spring in full sun, 12–18 in. (30–45 cm) apart, after frost hazard has passed.
Proper Care
Easy. Keep damp; allow soil surface to dry between waterings. Avoid fertilizing. Mulch in winter, zones 7–8. Prune after bloom to shape. Propagate by cuttings, division.
About This Plant
Good choice for accents, borders, containers, hedges in cottage, country, natural, rock gardens. Good for cutting, drying. Pest and disease resistant.
Lavender Species and Cultivars:
Lavender Species:
-
-
- Allard’s lavender, Lavandula X allardii
- Broad-leaved lavender, Lavandula latifolia
- Canary Island lavender, Lavandula canariensis
- English lavender, Lavandula angustifolia
- Fern-leaved lavender, Lavandula multifida
- French lavender, Lavandula dentata
- Lavandin, Lavandula X intermedia
- Spanish lavender, Lavandula stoechas
- Sweet lavender, Lavandula X heterophylla
- Woolly lavender Lavandula lanata
-
Popular Lavender Cultivars:
-
-
- ‘French Gray’, French lavender
- ‘Leucantha’, Spanish lavender
- ‘Nana’, dwarf English lavender
- ‘Wings of Night’, Spanish lavender
-
About Lavender
About 20 species of woody perennial herbs and shrubs are included in the Lavandula genus.
Lavender species are native to the Azores, the Mediterranean, the Middle East, and sub-Himalaya Asia.
Bring the essence of the Mediterranean to your own backyard by planting one or more species of lavender.
No summer visit to Provence, Iberia, or Tuscany is complete without a stroll through fragrant fields of lavender humming with the sounds of bees collecting pollen and nectar.
Their woolly, narrow, gray or gray green leaves and mounding habit make them good for accents and borders in country gardens. They are familiar to most gardeners from the formal and informal gardens found in England, France, Italy, and Spain.
Plantings of lavender are excellent for anchoring a bed or border, a fence or a wall. Also use them as visual accents by inter-planting lavender between foliage shrubs.
Lavender flowers are very fragrant, and they are a good choice for cutting, drying, and for making sachets.
When used for aromatherapy, lavender is believed to be calming and helps prompt relaxation and sleep.
Choose one or more of the popular species or cultivars listed.
Planting and Caring for Lavender
All lavender species are fast-growing plants. Plant lavender as you would annuals in U.S.D.A. plant hardiness zones 3–6. They are ground hardy and usually overwinter with minimal winter frost protection in hardiness zones 7–10.
Lavender are heat- and sun-tolerant plants, ideal for exposed locations in garden landscapes found in hot, dry climates.
Lavender is remarkably resistant to most pests and diseases, and does best in arid, hot climates with low humidity.
Plant lavenders in spring in full sun, once the soil has warmed.
Water them at their roots to keep their soil damp, allowing the soil surface to dry out between waterings.
They do best in damp to dry, well-drained, sandy soil and prefer average acid-alkaline balance.
For best results, limit your fertilizing until plants begin to lose vigor, suffer disease or insect damage, or their foliage yellows, a telltale sign of iron deficiency.
Lavender is remarkably resistant to most pests and diseases, and does best in arid, hot climates with low humidity.
When properly pruned, most lavender plants form dome-shaped mounds with protruding flower spikes, ranging in size from low herbs to midsized shrub-like bushes.
Shear spent flower stalks from the plants to promote a new sequence of buds and blooms.
Lavender colonies slowly expand at their margins. Divide them to maintain size and shape their growth.
Renew colonies after several years by pruning them severely in autumn, removing side shoots and leaving about a dozen stems at the plant’s center.
When renewing colonies, cut each remaining stem to a height of about 1 ft. (30 cm).
Water thoroughly after pruning and every week for several months until sprouts fill the bare branches with new growth.