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| Grow Lavender |
By Angela England
One of the most beloved herbs for garden color, fragrance gardens,
and harvested herbal use, lavender is a must-have in any organic
garden. Grown as a full, flowering perennial, lavender can stand alone
as a landscape shrub or serve as part of a more varied bed or
landscaping plot.
Growing Lavender
Native
to the Mediterranean, you can imagine the kind of climate that lavender
favors. Temperate with warm to hot summers and not a lot of rainfall,
lavender plants don’t like having “wet feet.” Although it’s hardy to
zones 5-9, lots of rainfall dictates a container or raised bed garden
with good drainage.
Lavender is extremely easygoing once it has
been established, but it can take awhile to get there from seed. If you
do want to give it a shot, start them in a cold frame early in the spring. Or, where winters are very mild, you can start in the fall to give them quite awhile to grow.
Starting from a root cutting or organic potted plant is the easiest way to start lavender.
Once you have an established plant, you can share root cuttings with others, too.
Average lavender plants will grow to around 2 ft tall, but look for varieties that range from much lower plants good for ground cover or much taller as a standalone, unkempt shrub that will be full and beautiful without much effort.
At
the end of the summer, prune lavender’s woody stems back about 2/3rds
of the way. This will help it keep its shrub shape and encourage
prolific flowering next season.
Lavender in the Perennial Garden
Having
an established perennial garden means you have cultivated reliable
results that will come back year after year. But more than convenience,
a perennial garden
cultivates a micro ecosystem. With waning bee populations and
butterflies just now making a comeback, a perennial garden is good for
your whole region.
With the ability to spread several feet wide
and a couple of feet tall, lavender is great as a main focal point,
especially if you want to let the space go without much tending.
Try
planting lavender around fruit trees. This will keep grass and weeds
away from the tree, and the scent helps to deter some of the pests that
would enjoy your foliage and fruits.
Lavender in the Edible Landscape
Of
course, lavender is a great addition to the edible landscape for its
full flowers, but there are loads of reasons to plant lavender beyond
the purple-grey blooms. Lavender’s drought tolerance, long season of
visual interest, and beautiful foliage give it a place in any landscape.
The colors and fine texture of lavender foliage make it excellent for texture contrast. Planting it around broad foliage and deeper greens makes each plant stand out even more.
Where lavender really shines in the edible landscape is when you need to fill a low maintenance space. In Gardening Like a Ninja, I laid out a plan for planting around a mailbox, including lavender. They can grow uninhibited without looking unruly.
Plus,
lavender looks great all throughout the season. Enjoy early spring
foliage, summer-long flowers, and even some winter interest. When you’ve
got perennials filling up space all year long, constant attractive
appearance is important. As far north as zone 3, lavender remains
throughout the winter.
Harvesting and Using Lavender
When
lavender blooms are fresh and just opened, they are excellent for
harvesting. It makes a great addition to teas and lemonades, but
overall, lavender isn’t used much as a culinary herb. Still, lavender
has plenty of uses for regular harvest.
Its fragrance is its best
quality. Lavender dried can be a foundational part of potpourri, or the
harvested spikes can be woven into lavender wands. Use them to freshen
drawers and linen closets or create magical playtime for little ones.
A
little lavender in a satchel under a pillow is said to help promote
restful sleep, and some in tea is used for its calming abilities. Infuse
lavender into white vinegar for a floral scented DIY cleaning or air
freshening spray.
Lavender grows so prolifically that you can
harvest it regularly all year long, and it’s a gentle and safe herb. So
enjoy lavender in your garden year after year, and have fun
experimenting with the many ways you can enjoy it after harvest.
