Time to trim the Lavender

It's that time again! 

This is a subject that comes up again, and again.... and again... when, and how, to cut back the lavender.

First question: why do we cut it back?

Answer: because if we don't, the plant gets bigger ("but that's a good thing, surely?" "Listen on, my pet, there's more to it than that,") and with lavender, that means that it gets woodier: and once they get woody, they start to fall open, losing the neat dome shape that we all admire. 

Instead, they flop open, revealing unlovely brown woody stems, many of which are dead.

Here's a fairly typical example - left.

It still flowers, it's still pretty, the bees still love it: but it's sprawling, and untidy, and is starting to flop over the path.

This is what happens if you plant a lavender, and don't prune it for five years...

Did you know that lavenders have quite a short life span? Friends of mine used to run a lavender nursery - yes, a whole nursery, just for lavender!! - and they told me that a lavender plant should be expected to live for five years, that's all. 

Five years!

I can hear several of you shouting at the screen "but I have lavender in my garden that's been there for donkey's years!" and I would agree: I know of many really old lavender plants. My friends commented that, if an individual lavender plant is pruned properly every year, it will indeed last a lot longer than five years. But most people don't prune them properly.

And secondly, lavender do seed themselves quite readily, especially if they are not pruned: so it is entirely possible that the "old" plant is actually one in a series of self-set seedlings, which have grown up around the original plant, which may have died off in the meantime.

I'm not totally convinced, with due respect to my friends: I think that they are confusing "perfect lavender plants" with "ordinary plants in our gardens and we don't mind if they are a bit shabby or shapeless." 

Anyway, back to the point: why prune lavender? To keep it compact, to extend it's life.

How to prune? Grab your secateurs in one hand, get a flexi-tub or other handy garden waste disposal device, and approach the lavender. Gently open up the foliage, until you can see the individual branches. Take hold of one of these branches, quite low down, then slide your hand upwards around the branch, compressing - gently - the foliage as you do so. Wow, I must get myself a go-pro, this sort of thing would be so much quicker if I did a short video of it...  once you have reached the point where you are seeing blue/green leaves, cut off the handful, and drop it in the tub.

I've just re-read that, and it makes perfect sense to me, because I must have done this about a thousand times by now: but it's one of those things which is so much easier to demonstrate, than to describe.

In brief, then, cut the lavender one handful at a time, making sure that you don't cut so far down than you are cutting into bare brown wood, because it won't re-grow from that point.  Always leave some greenery. But don't cut so "high" that you are leaving bare flower-stalks, either: cut them right off. As I say, far easier to demonstrate,  I shall look into the go-pro thing again.

Put all the cuttings into the bin, or on the bonfire pile: they don't make good compost. 

Here's a long lavender hedge, part-done: can you see where I've been?

I meant to do "before" and "after" but, as usual, I forgot to do the first one until I was already half-way down the row! 

However, this is actually quite nice, as it shows you how much, proportionately,  you can take off - and how much to leave behind. 

Enough that it's still green, but without all those sticky-up flowering stalks.

And here - right - is the finished item, a nice rounded shape, all the stems are gone, but there's plenty of green foliage left.

Before you ask, yes, you can, if you wish, do this job with a pair of shears. Many people find it easier to get a neat, balanced shape if they use shears.

(Or even the hedgetrimmers, although I would not recommend that, as a) they are a bit coarse for the job, and b) one slip and oops! All gone!)

The benefit of doing it by the handful, though, is that you don't have to spend half an hour afterwards, picking up all the tiny little bits, which have gone everywhere. Especially on a gravel drive, as it's a nightmare to pick up all the tiny pieces. By doing it one handful at a time, there is no clearing up at all.

And as for "when", that's actually quite simple: when it starts to look "grey".

Lavender flowers are, well, lavender coloured, except for white lavender of course: and when you look across the plants, you should see a haze of blue-purple-lilac-lavender colour.

When you start to see a haze of grey, then that is the time to cut them back.

The actual time depends very much on the weather: I've seen Lavender still flowering right into early autumn, but in a hot and dry year such as this one, they are finished much earlier in the year. So don't go by the calendar, go by your own eye: when they get that "haze of grey" look, get out there and trim them back!

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