This article will show you how to care for lavender plants. To be completely honest – you can make it as simple or as complicated as you like (or as time allows). You can:
- Fertilize (not necessary, and if you do choose to fertilize, do follow the guidelines below)
- Deadhead (also optional, but is good for lavender plants)
- Prune (recommended, but lavender will survive without pruning).
Feed your plants – fertilizing lavender
You don’t need to fertilize lavender, but you can if you would like to give it a little growth boost. If you choose to add fertilizer, add it only once per year, in Spring, by adding compost or using a flower fertilizer.
To add compost, place good quality flower garden compost (you can buy it from gardening stores or online) around each plant, no more than 2-3cm (1 inch) thick. Use a good quality compost such as the ones below:
- Insert examples
If you use fertilizer, it is very important that it is a slow release fertilizer, such as the examples below. Fertilizers that are absorbed too quickly can damage lavender plants.
Do not overfertilize! If you do, you will see a lot of new growth, but don’t get excited. Learning how to care for lavender means learning when to hold back. If you overfertilise, the new growth won’t be hardy enough and may not survive winter. The following are good quality, proven slow release fertilizers that are appropriate for all lavender types.
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Deadheading lavender plants – chopping off the flowers
If you don’t already know, deadheading plants is the process of removing the flower buds after the bloom time has finished. The flowers will still be there but will be a faded purple colour and clearly past their time. You’ll notice fewer bees are attracted to the lavender bushes. Deadheading is one of best ways to care for lavender plants.
Deadheading isn’t strictly necessary but has some benefits that you should be aware of. For example, if you deadhead lavender flowers after the first bloom, you are more likely to get a strong second bloom in the same season. Furthermore, with some lavender varieties and a long summer, you might even get a third lot of flowers.
Extending the blooming season by deadheading has some advantages:
- Obviously, your garden will have beautiful fragrant lavender flowers for longer!
- Provides more food for bees, butterflies and other pollinators (again, great for the rest of the garden).
- Helps to keep the lavender plant healthy and lush for next year.
- Provides an opportunity you an opportunity to dry the blooms. Don’t throw them away! Dried lavender has so many uses! Reference.
Deadheading flowers is very easy to do, even if you have never done it before. It is almost impossible to damage the plant. Here is how to deadhead your lavender:
- Choose a stem with a flower at the top.
- Find where the green spiky ‘leaves’ start, further down the stem.
- Cut the stem just above the leaves with a sharp pair of pruning shears.
Then just repeat for all of the faded flowers. You’ll be left with a bushy plant that has no flowers, but as we said earlier, there is a higher chance you’ll get a second lot of flowers in the same season.
When you are deadheading or pruning, look out for bees! We love them as the pollinate the rest of our plants, but no one likes to be stung by a bee. Caring for lavender has it’s risks (wink).
Pruning is caring – how to prune lavender plants
Learning how to care for lavender, means learning how and when to prune. Your plants will survive without pruning, but the stems will become quite long and woody. Eventually they will bend / flop over when the foliage and flowers become too heavy. This means that instead of seeing a nice bushy plant you’ll see woody stalks instead, and the rest of the plant will spread out on the ground rather than stay vertical.
To avoid this, you can prune your lavender. How often does lavender need pruning? Once or twice a year, depending on the variety. Pruning is easy, and you are very unlikely to damage the plant even if you have never done it before. Prune at least once. Twice is better, but not essential. Caring for lavender plans is a flexible task and there is a lot of wiggle room.
When the flowers have faded (usually autumn), trim them off, along with a small amount (not more than 5cm) of the leaves. Shoots will form before it gets cold.
At the end of winter or very beginning of spring (February or March), trim a small amount more to get the shape you want. Wait for some new growth to do this, and make sure you only take a small amount.
Don’t prune the ‘wood’ part of the plant – stick to the soft green growth, and you’ll get a bushy dense plant that is ready to shoot up flower stalks and make your garden beautiful for summer.
To prune, you’ll need some good, sharp garden shears. You can use large clippers if you are cutting a hedge in autumn, but for smaller plants or for the prune at the end of winter, use small garden shears.