Lavender Care

Lavender is of course a common favorite here in Zone 23.  I grow a pretty fair amount of it, mostly varieties of English and French and some Spanish.  For those who grow Lavender, you know that English varieties it seems in particular can get overgrown, leggy and downright ugly after a few years, even with trimming.  My typical response to this has been to remove these overgrown specimens, roots and all, and replace them with a fresh 1 gallon plant.  

I have a border garden of lavender, rosemary and iceberg roses along our front split rail fence (cited recently by a famous local entomologist as an area of high spittlebug incidence) that was getting unruly this fall.  I cut back several English Lavender all the way to the ground.  Too tired to try to remove the roots, I just left them in the ground. Well, look at them now.  This photo shows one of several new plants that have sprung from those roots, forming shapely, good-sized shrubs much quicker than would have been the case if I had replaced them.  Now I know.