It seems today that having a few lavender plants in your garden is practically an obligation of the coastal gardener. Lavender is everywhere; in pots, in herb gardens, next to roses, in the shopping center parking lot and throughout suburban landscapes.
Lavender is easy to grow in Orange County’s warm, dry climate, requiring little pest control or fertilizer, and, once established, little water. Its scent is calming, and is why it is an essential oil in many aroma therapy products like lotions and candles. You can even cook with lavender. But first you have to grow lavender.
How to grow lavender successfully
Lavender loves full sun. Don’t be shy about planting lavender in a hot, dry, sunny area. If it is only receiving half a day of sun it will only be half as attractive. Lavenders native range extends across the sunny slopes and hillsides of the Northern edge of Africa, through southern Europe and all around the Mediterranean Sea; climates very similar to ours in Orange County.
Lavender does not want to be over watered. Because of its Mediterranean heritage, lavender plants are accustomed to periods of dryness. Lavender will not be happy if planted in a conventional mixed garden, with sprinklers going on frequently. Lavender would be better if positioned alongside other plants with similar low water needs, such as rosemary, olive, ceonothus, salvia, and so on. I’m afraid a row of lavender along the edge of a lawn, roses and foxgloves at its side and bedding flowers at its feet, won’t be for long.
Give it the proper amount of room. There are many lavender species and selections and they vary in their ultimate size. Read the tags carefully or ask nursery staff about their size before taking them home. A cute little twelve inch plant with a few pretty flowers today may become a four foot by six foot behemoth within a year or two. Unfortunately, many lavenders planted into gardens are too large for the space they are given and then mercilessly hacked back to keep them in bounds. It’s not a pretty sight. Choose wisely.
Frequent pruning helps. Lavender plants don’t care for hard pruning, often showing permanent brown or dead spots where they were cut too hard. After a new lavender plant settles in, it is best to prune it frequently, but lightly, never trimming past the foliage and into the dry stems. If you must trim a lavender harder that this, the best time would be in early spring - about now. In fact, a moderate annual pruning and shaping every spring, followed by occasional light tipping of the new growth would be a good lavender regimen and keep they plants shapely and attractive.
Replace lavender every few years. Lavender plants, when placed into a garden setting, are not permanent additions like hawthorns, boxwoods and the other workhorses of the garden. Lavenders should probably be replaced every five years of so if you want them to look their best. They will certainly live much longer, but a woody, contorted, open topped plant is not what most people want. You will see examples of old lavender plants in many commercial plantings, businesses and parking lots that have outlived their beautiful years. In your garden don’t think that an old one is going to revive itself and be young, lively and full again – it won’t, it will only get worse. Start over, new lavenders are inexpensive.
Though beneficial bugs like honeybees and ladybugs love lavender, traditional pests tend to stay away. Like many plants from Mediterranean climates, lavender plants are filled with resins and aromatic oils. Insects and pests, including deer, rabbits and snails, usually stay away. Rosemary, sage, eucalyptus, thyme and many of our native plants also have fragrant, aromatic oils in their foliage. Either rubbed along a pant leg or drifting in the warm summer air, these fragrances are a potent reminder of Orange County’s warm, sunny, Mediterranean climate, a place where lavenders abound.
Ron Vanderhoff is the Nursery Manager at Roger’s Gardens, Corona del Mar
