This Forum will close on Wednesday 27 March, 2024. Please refer to the announcement on the Discussions page for further detail.
Lavender
Guildford Gardener:
1) i have a row of lavender bushes, probably 8, leading to the front door, & I didn't prune them in the Autumn, I left them until the Spring this year. Is now the right time for me to prune them, or must I wait till it gets a bit warmer? & can I prune them back hard? They are probably 7 years old now. Does the soil require feeding/composting?
2) hydrangea pruning: I did no hydrangea pruning in the Autumn, is it time to prune these now & how far should I cut them back to ?
All advice would be welcome. Thankyou.
0
Posts
Hi Tads,
Lavender, you can cut it back to the start of the bush, maybe a little of the top but do not prune down to old wood. I don't feed mine and they don't seem to be worse off for it.
I have a mophead one and I don't prune it other than shoots going where I don't want them to. I can't comment on the bush type so I'll leave that to someone else on the forum.
I think you might risk losing this year's flowers if you cut back now. Could you wait till they've flowered?
If its just dead flower stalks you're ok to cut those back to the bush.
My lavi bush has been flattened by the gales and the old woody stems/branches have been squashed
? Is it time to dig it up and start again
I live in Scotland and have two lavender hedges and I don't prune my lavender until the spring, apart from a light trim to take the flower heads off in the autumn. Then in the spring I cut it back to a simple dome to the first shoots above the old wood. This is to keep the plants as trim as possible before they put on the summer growth. This also ensures that you don't get a lot of old wood with some leaves perched on top. I have done this for a number of years and the plants all come through a flower well.
@ NewBoy2 - I would suggest digging up and starting again. If the plant has been badly damaged it is likely that it will never perform as well as it should and starting with a new healthy plant should catch up in no time!
what will happens if I cut these "oldish" lavender back into the wood? (I did hard orune 3/4 years ago (& int the wood) with an Autumn prune - got accolades from neighbours, the following summer, asking me what I had done to them, to get that display? ???? (some growers say they don't have a problem when they cut into the wood?) now my plants ARE 7 years old, I do realise that). Is it possible, if I orune hard now, I will only lose the flowers for this year? then, will I be able to to prune them ligthtly this Autumn - will this work? Will they recoup, & then flower next year, or not?
i treat lavenders like other mediterranean plants. remove about a third of the old wood and cut the whole plant back by about a third. wait until new growth starts as in my experience they dislike pruning while dormant. on your old lags if you take out the very oldest wood the bush should rejuvenate.
Thankyou Davids10 - ????
Davids10 - mmmn, thinking of trying what you say, makes sense......thankyou, Tads ????