You can use hand pruners or pruning shears. Shears are less precise than hand pruners, but they save time and may be necessary when you are creating or maintaining a lavender hedge. A good rule of thumb is to count to the third node a raised bump from which leaves grow above the woody part and then cut just above it. If you are lucky, all three nodes, as well as some hidden nodes buried in the wood, will wake up and grow for you.
Identifying your lavender variety and tailoring pruning to that type will help you get more return for your efforts. There are three common types of lavender:. Lavandula angustifolia : English lavender comes in many varieties, including 'Hidcote' and 'Munstead. It is generally low-growing and has a compact, mounded shape. English lavender blooms in late spring to early summer.
If it's pruned lightly just after its first flowering, it will likely flower again in late summer. After this second flowering, a full pruning—typically in late August—will prepare it for winter and encourage more blooms in spring. Lavandin x intermedia : This hybrid of English and spike lavenders also has many varieties. The most common are 'Grosso,' 'Provence,' and 'Giant Hidcote.
The flower spikes also are longer, and they have a graceful taper. Lavandins are mounded in shape and usually larger than English lavender with long stems that tend to fan out from the center. Lavandins bloom in mid- to late summer and a full pruning after the long blooming season will prepare a plant for winter. Lavandula stoechas : Sometimes called Spanish or French lavender, this is the least hardy of the lavenders with blooms earliest in spring.
Spanish lavender has a short, full flower spike with open petals at the top, distinguishing it from other types. Because of its fragility, lightly prune this lavender—never too close to the base—just after the first flowering. Then, follow up with gentle deadheading removing spent flowers and shaping for the rest of the season. A slightly more vigorous pruning can be done in late August to prepare the plant for winter and encourage a fuller plant in spring. You can easily make more lavender by taking softwood or semi-ripe cuttings from young plants in early summer and hardwood cuttings from new growth after flowering in late autumn.
Sow seed collected from dry seedheads. Note that seeds of cultivars will not breed true resulting in a variety of flower colour. Here are just a few to consider;. Lavandula angustifolia English lavender is the hardiest - H5 hardy-cold winter.
Hybrid English lavender including L. Lavandula stoechas French lavender and L. They are easily recognised by the colourful bracts or ear-like tufts topping the flowerheads. They have a long summer flowering period are ideal for container cultivation:. Lavenders can suffer root rots in wet or heavy soils, and may be troubled by insect pests affecting several Mediterranean herb plants including rosemary beetle and sage and Ligurian leafhopper.
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Environmentally friendly gardening. Plant health. Take part in our research. Meet the team. Shop plants rhsplants. Shopping with the RHS. RHS Christmas gifts. However, left to its own devices, lavender can become woody and ragged. There is more than one kind of lavender — with English lavenders, such as Hidcote and Munstead, being the most popular, and the hardiest. Other European lavender varieties are less hardy, and so you will need to take extra care when pruning.
However, if you stick to a few golden rules, you can apply them to all of your lavender plants. At this early stage, pruning is about encouraging new growth, and developing a nice mounded shape.
If you have grown the lavender from seed or cuttings, then it is beneficial to pinch out new growth tips to help the plant become bushy. Lavender plants will establish quickly, so from their second year you will need to follow a simple — but thorough — pruning regime to keep them in shape. When deciding how to prune lavender, there are are different schools of thought about when and how often to do it.
If you cut into the old wood, which does not have any leaves, and new leaves do not grow, then it will not survive. When pruning your lavender in the summer, you may want to harvest the flowers for their therapeutic and culinary uses.
If so, do this when around half of the buds are in bloom. Otherwise, wait until the flowers have faded before pruning. Spring is the time for pruning your lavender harder to minimize the development of woody stems and encourage fresh new growth. You should do this early in the season, to give the plant plenty of time to reestablish itself.
However, it may be possible to rejuvenate them. Though usually avoided, cutting lavender into the old wood can be a good way to renovate them. The trick is to make sure you can still see signs of life in the form of growth nodes below the cutting point.
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