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English Lavender help!

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  • Pete.8Pete.8 Posts: 11,340
    Once the flowers are over I snip of the flower stems toward the base - there's usually lots of seed inside. If you shake them over some gritty soil there a good chance you'll get some seedlings appear. They pop up here and there on my gravel drive

    Billericay - Essex

    Knowledge is knowing that a tomato is a fruit.
    Wisdom is not putting it in a fruit salad.
  • techskeltechskel Posts: 37
    Really? It’s worth a try. I’d have them planted in the ground but previous owners have paved the back garden, so pots it is. 
  • Pete.8Pete.8 Posts: 11,340
    The seeds are small, black and shiny. When dead, snip off a flower head and turn it upside down, the seeds should drop out into your hand
    I've never tried growing them from seed as cuttings are so easy

    Billericay - Essex

    Knowledge is knowing that a tomato is a fruit.
    Wisdom is not putting it in a fruit salad.
  • I leave my lavender bushes, grown in the open, until the bees stop visiting them. Then I clip the whole bush back to about 3 shoots above the old wood. This will be dark in colour. It sounds drastic but it gives the plants time to begin developing the new shoots left and  time for them to grow and harden off before winter. Lavenders do not like being cut back into hard old wood and will often turn up their toes and die. Having said that, this year, after the Beast from the East had been and gone, and I had not clipped them last year,I did give my bushes a very hard trim back into old wood, but still leaving one or two shoots right near the base, they are now doing really well, after looking a bit miserable for a month or two. They are in full flower and the bees are going mad with delight. I also give them a light dusting of lime each year in early Spring as they enjoy an alkaline soil and my  soil is slightly acidic.
  • techskeltechskel Posts: 37
    My French refused to come back after beast of the East before that they were doing quite good, I was conservative with pruning. 
    This is my third pair of plants, it’s all a learning curve. 
    Thankfully they’re not too expensive to buy in. 
  • PurplerainPurplerain Posts: 1,053
    I love English lavender and find it very dependable. Just yesterday I rescued one dead on its feet from Morrisons. I left it standing in water until it had soaked through. Then I repotted it in a plastic pot with MPC, sharp sand and grit. Then I cut all the remaining flowers off. I am sure it will come back eventually.

    The English Lavender seem to do best in some shade I find.

    The top photo is the sad looking specimen and the bottom one is on its third year shaded.


    SW Scotland
  • techskeltechskel Posts: 37
    Thinking about it this one is in full sun the one other side of the door gets a little shade later in the day but it could have made all the difference. 
    Ive got the season submerged in a tub at the min & I’ll trim it down tomorrow. I won’t lose anything by trying. 
  • Pat EPat E Posts: 12,316
    They don’t like to be wet. Full sun seems best here. We get hot summers and cold winters. 

    S. E. NSW
  • techskeltechskel Posts: 37
    I’m jealous! I’m now on the look out for another. It’s hard to get English around here. 
  • Pat EPat E Posts: 12,316
    They strike quite well from cuttings, Techskel.
    S. E. NSW
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