If you do only one garden chore this week, - prune your lavender
August 31, 2010
Lavandula Hidcote, - one of the loveliest plants for growing as a small hedge. But to get the English lavenders to flower again well next year, and to ensure you don't get leggy plants with bare centres, Now is the time to prune them.
The end of August bank holiday weekend is always my marker for getting rid of the flowering stems, plus a little bit more, (consider it a lavender haircut) so that the plant puts on new growth.
Flower buds for next year start to form in September, and by pruning now, new growth can form during September and October, that will be hard enough to survive the winter.
Now there is a deliberate mistake in this picture, - i'm left handed, and I borrowed my mum's secateurs to help her prune these lavender, that's my excuse for ending up using them the wrong way up.... - This is how they should be