Grow It In Maine

The magic of lavender

Sat, 03/28/2015 - 10:30am

Charlotte displayed some fluffy sprigs of lavender on her winter porch. She wants to keep them growing.

This delightful herb is found in garden beds as part of a collection of useful plants. It is also grown among perennial flowers, in full sunlight. Sometimes, lavender bushes are trained into a low hedge, maybe bordering a path.

(Note: when planning such edging, set it back from the walkway and give bees the right of way. Fragrant flowers may seem romantic close to a path, but why put bees in danger of humans, or people on a painful collision course with foraging bees?)

A shrubby member of the mint family (unless the taxonomists have shifted their relationships), lavender is a pleasure in any yard. It spends its life aiming to create wooden branches. But that wood is likely to be weak, splitting easily and growing bald and unsightly.

Give a lavender plant a longer life by pruning it. A well-shaped and cared-for specimen yields more fragrant blossoms as its vigor is extended.

Pruning can happen at any time of year, but makes more sense when begun in earliest spring or August-into-September.

In the weeks to come, examine your growing lavender. Right now, it may look shaggy, with dead wood and pieces growing every which-way.

First, get rid of the dead bits, especially in the center. If woody pieces jut out, trim them. New greenery will not regrow there to revive the shrub.

Then, with your very sharp clippers or shears, clip back the greenery on each branch, leaving about three whorls (layers of round-the-stem twigs). Cutting the bush back now will result in more blossoms later. If there’s enough greenery from the trimming, bring those pieces indoors and stand in water for a hint of spring.

Later, buds and flowers will form, and harvest may begin. Now, dry the stems in a darker cooler spot — with air circulation. Maybe use buds in cookies or weave the twigs into little baskets. Dry flowers lightly stuffed into little cloth bags make moth-repelling sachets. Lavender added to a bath is a calming luxury.

At August’s end, prune the weak center wood from the plants, to preserve them for another year. From now on, remember to keep the lavender young for a longer life.

Write this routine on a calendar, to remember to repeat it in future years. Happy snipping and sniffing!