Lavender - Advice Needed

Kevie192

Hi all,

I'm currently looking at my garden and I have a space which I think would be perfect for lavender. Outside the back door is a raised patio area and I have a border about 5-6ft x 1ft the other side of the patio. It's about 1.5ft high so any regular flowers I plant wouldn't be seen there, but lavender would poke up over the wall.

So, do I need to get plants or can I just sow seeds straight in there? It's quite a sunny area. Also, any recommendation for varieties? I would like one with a strong scent and obviously fairly tall considering the area, but not too tall! I would prefer it it would spread and cover the whole of that border too.

Thanks,

Kevin

olly300

Get plants.

You can get little ones really cheaply, and if you don't buy enough to fill the space you can take cuttings and propagate your own.

midnightraven3

buy plants
seeds are quite difficult if you are fairly inexperienced
hidcote will give a nice medium height plant with LOTS of blooms, and will spread to its available space

and its a lovely one to dry as well

smellymel74

i agree with the previous poster - i've tried growing lavender from seed and it's difficult; much better to buy small plants - the big Tesco stores have medium sized french lavender for £3.50 at the mo and B&Q do 2 pots of herbs (including french lavender) for £5. they also do similar sized pots of english lavender for £3.50. i'd go for the english version as i find it's taller.

laurel7172

And it's really, really easy to propagate. Just snap off a new shoot with a bit of a "heel", dip the end in rooting compound, if you have any, and straight into compost. If you have a friend or neighbour with a lavender you like, why don't you ask them if you can snap off a few shoots?

Painkiller

Lavender 'Willow Vale' is easy to grow by seed. For the last two years I've just mixed the dead flower heads with compost & grown the plants - it will be a while before they are tall enough to be seen over the wall though.

blushingbride_3

carboots are good for plants, we have a regular guy at ours

i got some pretty plants for £1.50 saw them in the garden centre next week (ok a little bigger) for £4.50 each!:eek:

morg_monster

If you were near me you could have a whole plant, we have 5 in the herb garden of our new house which I think is somewhat overkill so I am planning to dig them out at some point.
But perhaps I will offer a couple on freecycle and propogate from some of the others and sell them on!

hethmar

And lavender likes dry hot weather, which they reckon we will be having this year.