LAVENDER BLUE, LAVENDER GREEN (From St Albans & Harpenden Review)

LAVENDER BLUE, LAVENDER GREEN

7:41pm Sunday 22nd August 2010

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I love lavender, I love its perfume, I love its colour, in fact I love everything about it, and I am sure I am not alone. Not surprising when you think of its many and varied uses. It can be used for flavouring, dried for lasting perfume and in our gardens it delights us with scent during the summer months.

On the whole lavenders are fairly easy and trouble free to grow. Their preferred site is a sunny and south-west facing with light, free-draining soil. If, like many of us in this area, you garden on heavy clay dig in plenty of gravel before planting. Pruning has to be done with special care. To keep your plants in good shape cut off the old flowering stems in late summer together with about 5cm of the new foliage. Don’t be over vigorous as some of the foliage may be damaged by frost. It can seem sad to do this as quite often the plant is still being worked by bees. The following spring cut the growing stems back by about 5cm. Always check that there are some green shoots below where you intend to cut.

To propagate lavender the simplest way is to take semi-hardwood cuttings in late summer, either with or without a ‘heel’. Carefully trim off the lower leaves and insert the cuttings round the edge of a 15cm pot filled with a gritty compost. Place the pot in a cold frame or shady place and keep moist but not too wet. They should root in 4-6 weeks. Once rooted transfer to a 7cm pot and put outside, in a sheltered place, ready for planting out next spring. Another way is to pile up a gritty compost around the base of the main plant so that it covers any new growth. New shoots should root down into the compost and when they are established sever them from the parent plant, pot them up individually and put them in a sheltered place for next spring.

If you are going to dry any stems cut them on a sunny morning and select those with the flowers just out. August is usually the best month to do this but it is all depends on the weather, sunshine is essential. The cut flowers can either be spread out to dry or tied into small bunches and hung upside down in an airy, dry, light place. This should take about two weeks after which the flowers can be used to fill lavender bags or placed in bowls around your home. Either way they will bring a fragrance of summer to help through the dreary winter days.