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Pruning lavender
Cocktailqueen
Posts: 2
hello - new to this excellent form and was hoping for some help.
I have a lavender plant (see picure) which has healthy growth at the top but has gone woody and dead looking at the base. It looked lovely over the summer. I am tempted to dig it out but was wondering whether I should prune it in the hope that it comes back looking good next year. Any advice would be gratefully received
0
Posts
Lavenders don't last forever so if it is really woody at the bottom, I would replace with new. If you want to give it a chance you could prune quite hard, but not down as far as the woody bit as they don't normally resprout from there and see if it is better looking next year.
Hi. Agree with Hogweed. I find they do look a bit bedraggled at this time of year. You could also pot it up if you don't like the look of it in the border.
Whatever you decide to do, if there is about four inches of healthy growth on stems, take cuttings! Strip off most of the leaves and place them around the outside of a pot containing an equal mix of compost and vermiculite. I do this every September. Not all cuttings take but I always have some plantlets to put out the following year.
Thanks for the replies. I decided to pull it out in the end. It was also too tall for the front of my border It will be the first time I have done this but I will take some cuttings as suggested. I just love lavender and so do the bees.