I once again have lavender on my mind. My husband and I were walking through our residential neighborhood this past weekend, noticing how spring is well and truly here in our neighbors’ gardens.
Most of the houses have a small front garden. And it’s interesting to observe which plants are one-offs with our neighbors and which ones make a repeat appearance. It’s no surprise to me that lavender falls in this latter category.
Together with rhododendrons, geraniums and roses, it is perhaps one of the most common inhabitants of these suburban gardens.
What did surprise me though were the various states of the lavender displays. One gardener had trimmed it neatly and close to the ground; and there was already new growth starting to sprout back from this neat pile of twigs.
Someone else had let their lavender run wild, presumably for years, until it resembled a horticultural version of Brian May’s hair.
Another one of my neighbors had optimized their pruning timing so well, that the plants looked perfect, as if they had just been pulled from the greenhouse of a professional grower.
Lavender is a very easy-going and easy-growing plant. But depending on how we treat it in spring, it can live for years looking young and fresh, or it can end up a woody, scraggly mess.
Here are some lavender spring jobs that I think you shouldn’t skip this year. (Unless you really like Brian May’s hair, I guess.)
1. It’s time to prune your lavender
Let’s start with pruning because this makes a big difference. And honestly, I found this job quite intimidating for longer than I care to admit. Which, in turn, resulted in either skipping pruning (a big mistake, especially if repeated over the years) or over-pruning (another mistake).
If you remember one thing from this article, let it be this: with lavender, old wood will not regenerate into new growth.
Here’s what I mean: if you skip pruning your lavender, the stems will grow taller and thicker. But at the same time, this will raise the crown of the shrub.
This is perfectly fine if you decide to grow it as a tree.
To most gardeners, myself included, lavender looks much better as a shrub.
If you haven’t pruned last fall, now’s the second best time to do it.
Start by removing damaged stems, if you find any. In theory, English lavender (Lavandula angustifolia) is winter hardy and can withstand temperatures that dip as low as 5F (-15C). But that’s not always the case.
Larger lavender shrubs may take a winter beating if we forget to prune it in the fall and we get heavy snowfall throughout the winter months.
It is, after all, a Mediterranean herbaceous perennial that hasn’t evolved to withstand prolonged deep freeze and heavy snow weight on its stems. Cut off the dead stems as low to the ground as possible.
Prune down to a branching point.
We’ll then move on to remove enough off the top to keep the plant compact. We want to shape it into a round shrub (or whatever your Edward Scissorshands imagination compels you). This will help it grow thicker.
Again, like with most herbs, we need to prune it right above a branching point. That is where new growth will emerge. And it’s this new growth that will form this year’s blooms.
Whether that means taking just a couple of inches off the top, or more, it’s up to you. It’s all about the aesthetic that you’re going for in your garden.
The trick with lavender is to not prune it too low. Remember the rule, if you prune all the way down to the woody stems, it will not regenerate.
For a more thorough tutorial, including how to prune lavender in the fall, have a look at this guide I wrote.
2. You can take lavender softwood cuttings.
There are so many ways to propagate lavender, but taking softwood cuttings must be my favorite. I can multitask while I prune my lavender and turn some of these prunings into cuttings.
I like to think of cuttings as my insurance policy. Because sooner or later, generally in about five or six years, that lavender shrub will become too woody to look good. Or it may succumb to a winter storm. Or to a flood in spring.
It’s a good idea to have backups already growing in pots. It’s an even better idea to have these pots overwinter in a sheltered location.
When we’re taking softwood cuttings, we’re using this year’s growth. So this is generally something that we do a bit later in spring, when the growth is still tender and flexible, and hasn’t had time to harden up yet.
It’s a fairly small window of time we’re working with. In my garden, I usually take softwood cuttings from mid-April to mid-May.
Taking lavender cuttings is easy!
All you need to do is choose some non-flowering stems, cut the top 4 inches (10 cm). Then strip off the lower leaves of the stem to clean it up. This is the part that will go into soil again, so we need the leaf nodes to be clear of any old growth.
These leaf nodes where the new growth will emerge. I then stick everything in a pot full of well-aerated soil and well-draining soil and make sure to keep it warm and humid.
It should take about six weeks for the cuttings to root, but it may take longer depending on environmental factors. If you’re an impatient gardener, you can also try using some rooting hormone to accelerate this process.
I have learned a few more tips over the years about how to make sure softwood cuttings have a good rate of rooting into new plants. It’s a bit too long to write everything here. So have a look at this separate article I wrote about softwood cuttings (including a list of 30 plants that we can propagate this way).
3. Layer your lavender.
While cuttings may be my preferred method to get more lavender plants for free, my colleague Tracey chooses layering. And this would be the perfect method if you have older established lavender plants that are approaching the end of their golden years.
What we’re doing is basically creating a clone of this plant by bending a stem and burying a section of it in the ground, right next to the main plant. We don’t cut off any sections at this point.
Over time, the nodes that are in direct and constant contact with the soil will develop new roots. All we have to do then is detach the newly rooted stem from the mother-plant. And that’s our new lavender.
Tracey is even better at explaining how to layer lavender in this article.
4. Relocate your lavender, but only if absolutely necessary.
Like most woody plants, lavender doesn’t take well to being moved around. I’m not saying it will die if we transplant it, but it will certainly take longer than other perennials to recover. So, as much as possible, I try not to disturb it too often.
However, there are two common scenarios in which I’ve had to relocate my lavender after everything else failed.
Either the lavender was not getting enough sun or it was getting too much water.
Let’s think back to this herb’s Mediterranean roots. It needs sun, there’s no doubt about it. How much sun? Preferably at least six hours a day (and even more at the height of summer).
Will it die if it doesn’t get this much sun? No, but it will struggle. It won’t grow as fast. It won’t bloom as well. And it will likely get progressively worse every year.
How about the too much water part? Lavender has waxy leaves that lock in moisture. It’s adapted to growing in well-draining sandy soils. So not only does it not need water, it doesn’t like too much water either.
I found that water damage in lavender happens for two reasons.
First, we may have planted the lavender in a spot in the garden that doesn’t drain very well. If you see pools of water stagnating on the surface of your soil after it rains, then it’s a sign that the ground in this area may stay too wet for too long for lavender.
Secondly – and a mistake I’ve made in the past – we may have paired lavender with thirsty plants (such as daylilies, roses or peonies). And as we’re watering the thirsty plants throughout the summer, we’re inadvertently overwatering the lavender.
Transplanting your lavender is as easy as digging out the root ball (without cutting into it too much) and planting it somewhere else. If you can, see if you can plant it in a more elevated position that has better drainage and gets more sun.
Overall, I think of lavender as an easy-going plant. It adds color, scent and texture to the garden all the while attracting bees and other pollinators. With a little extra spring care, it can become a veritable workhorse of the garden.
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