Planting and Growing Lavender

Ah, the countryside of Provence. Lavender fields as far as the eye can see, the delicate flowers releasing their sweet fragrance into the warm summer breeze. Except we're not in France, and technically it's still winter. But we can bring a little bit of that daydream into any garden. And lavender is such a useful herb, both medicinally and culinary. But above and beyond that, it just smells awesome and the bees love it. I'm working today in our new French garden and we're going to be planting two different types of lavender. Lavender Dentata and Lavender Intermedia Provence. I've got my spot chosen and I'm going to dig a hole twice as deep and twice as wide as the pot. I'm fortunate enough to live in a Mediterranean climate where lavender grows best. However, that is not a prerequisite for success. In fact, I planted six lavender plants a few years back and all six of them rotted. It's really more about soil quality. And not what you might think. Lavender actually thrives on neglect and what you would traditionally consider bad soil conditions. It likes a warm, sunny location but also requires little to no water and unamended, fast-draining soil. The location I'm planting today hasn't had a lot of improvement lately in terms of compost or manure. And even though we have quite a bit of sand in our soil, I want to improve the drainage even more. I'm adding coarse sand beneath where the roots will be and I'm also going to add it to the backfill. If you live in a wet climate or have a lot of humidity, you really want to improve the drainage of the soil. And you can do that by adding a lot of sand and gravel both beneath the plant in the hole and into the backfill for the dirt around the roots. You can also plant them up on a mound so that any rainwater runs off. Anything you can do to improve the drainage, the lavender is really going to appreciate and will pay you back. There's almost, you can't have too good a drainage for lavender. These are young plants and look like they were recently potted on. So there are not a lot of roots to tease out here. Because I feel like we have good enough drainage, I'm going to plant at the same level it was growing in the pot and not up on a mound. But again, in wet climates or heavy soil, you might want to plant it about two to three inches higher than ground level and then mound the soil up to it. As I backfill the soil, I'm mixing in some more sand just to have even drainage throughout. So that's it. And remember, literally the drier and more barren the soil, the better the flowers and the better the fragrance. And if you do live in a humid climate and have some problems growing them in the soil, even through all of this, you can always grow them in containers. Make sure you have excellent draining potting soil and actually add some more perlite or gravel just for good measure. I want to thank you for watching. If you enjoyed the video, give us a thumbs up. If you learned something new, please consider subscribing. If you have some tips of your own, go ahead and mention them in the comments. That would be great. And I'll see you guys next time.