English garden: How to grow lavender. Garden tips

Garden tips on how to grow lavender

Here is step by step garden tips on how to grow lavender from cuttings.

1. How to grow lavender. Lavender grows easily from cuttings. Start lavender cuttings with semi-ripe wood from the current season's growth, soft at the top but firm and becoming brown and woody at the base. Such shoots are available after flowering -usually midsummer to mid-autumn. Choose a healthy lavender bush as a stock lavender plant and avoid shoots that are overly lush or those with faded flowers on the ends. Morning is the best time to take lavender cuttings while the plant is not water stressed. If there's going to be a delay between taking cutting material and

preparing it, place material in a plastic bag with a sprinkle of water.

2 How to grow lavender.Trim. Cut the lavender cuttings material to 7cm-l0cm long. Any longer, nip out the tip. Pull off most of the lower lavender leaves, leaving just the top 2cm. You can take semi-ripe lavender cuttings with a heel, by pulling an un-flowered side shoot down and away from a main stem and trimming the wedge of wood at the base with a knife, but this method makes for slow rooting.

3. Prepare lavender cuttings by slicing the stem just below a leaf bud with a sharp craft knife.

Wound one side of the lavender cutting by removing a sliver of bark down one side (about 1cm

long). This increases the surface area for rooting. Dip the bottom of the lavender cuttings into

a hormone powder or gel before planting. Use a pencil or sharp stick to dibble a hole in the soil mix before inserting the cutting so the cut end is not damaged.

4. Plant lavender cuttings in pots. How to grow lavender. Put 10-12 lavender cuttings in a 10cm diameter pot. Gardeners have many methods for rooting cuttings but lavenders need especially good drainage so try pure sharp sand, fine grit or perlite rather than cutting mix. insert cuttings around the edge of the pot by about one third their length. Gently firm the mix and water well. Lavender cuttings go mouldy if placed in a humid propagator or plastic bag, but they'll wilt if

it's too dry and hot. Let lavender cuttings dry for an hour or two after watering then put them in a clear plastic container with the lid wedged open. Or place potted lavender cuttings in a bag with the end open for ventilation. Leave to lavender cuttings root in a sheltered but well-lit place out of the midday sun.

How to grow lavender: Soil and feeding

Lavenders hail from the Mediterranean so they love sunshine and a good wind in their sails. Their tough, hairy leaves are well adapted to planting in exposed and coastal gardens too, but wherever you garden, make sure the soil is as light and well-drained as possible for grow lavender. To improve heavy soils, plant on mounds or ridges and add coarse grit rather than organic matter. Lavenders like stony ground to grow on. They also love slightly alkaline conditions and as most New Zealand soils are acidic, it pays to dress them annually in autumn with a little lime to raise the pH.

How to grow lavender. Apply a handful of blood and bone each spring to boost the growth to come too.

Pauline says some of the best lavenders she has seen have been planted with a weed-mat mulch covered in crushed shell. Not only do the shells leach valuable calcium to the plants but they reflect sunlight and heat back up onto the foliage.

How to grow lavender: pruning

Most lavenders become ungainly, fall apart and die when they are not pruned firmly enough. In mild, northern

districts you can prune in autumn but in cold areas just trim off the faded flowers then and wait to prune until the chance of hard frost has passed in spring. Either way when you grow lavender use this garden tips: you can prune with shears or powered hedge cutters, removing about a third of last season's foliage. But never

cut into bare wood as they won't recover.

How to grow lavender: Growing in pots

Because they like good drainage to grow in and are drought-tolerant, smaller lavender varieties are great in pots - especially where they can be sat on a wall or placed by a doorway so they can be sniffed and brushed past. Growing lavender in pots, avoid overly large containers - 30-40cm diameter is ideal. Use a good multipurpose or better still, a loam-based container mix, with extra grit added to improve drainage, and controlied-release fertiliser granules. Garden tips for grow lavender: water well in summer but keep them

dry in winter. The beauty of planting in pots is that you can bring the tender sorts into a sheltered corner of your verandah or greenhouse for winter.

Grow lavender in hedges

Lavenders grow great in small to medium hedges when the soil is well-drained and where light is abundant. But remember that some are short-lived and tend to bulge and sag after a few years so they are not really

suitable for highly formal arrangements. And their natural shape means they don't clip well into square-sided shapes.

Garden tips: When grow lavender in hedges it's essential to choose a cultivar of a suitable size and to plan your planting to allow plenty of room for your hedge to swell outward without encroaching on paths. Bear in mind that when in flower, most varieties effectively double in size and spread, and you may not want wet, sagging blooms hanging over paths for several months a year. Where adjacent planting flops on to a lavender

hedge, it will quickly develop bald patches, so give it plenty of room. Grow your lavender plants according to your budget. For an instant look, let bushes touch but it's better to leave 35cm between smaller varieties and 50cm between large, to give them space to swell and knit together the first year.

Grow lavender in the garden

Lavender is surely the goody-two-shoes of the plant world. For this super-scented, drought-tolerant shrub is equally beloved by bees, health addicts, cooks and anyone who wants a whiff of the Mediterranean.

Maybe it was the Egyptians who first used it to make their mummies smell sweet, but lavender has certainly been in use as a herb for over 2500 years. The Romans used its rich oils for cooking, bathing, and scenting the air, just as we do today, and it was they who probably came up with the name.

You may not have room to roll out a carpet of blue but most of us have a sunny corner where the scent of this perky plant can make us smile. Begin to grow lavender with a large French lavender (Lavandula dentata) which is always in flower, then allow so-called Spanish stoechas varieties to show off their coloured tufts in spring, giving way to classic English lavender (Lavandula angustifblia) from late November.

English lavender is the best for aromatherapy and cooking but hybrid Lavandula x intermedia is also used for its oil in aromatherapy, soaps and cosmetics. This one begins flowering in January. Like the stoechas types, some cultivars repeat flower if you deadhead lavender flower promptly when you grow lavender in your garden, and it continue to colour the garden well into autumn.

People love to grow lavender so much they have bred them by the bucket-load. There's even a few Kiwi-bred varieties - and cracking good they are too.