Category Archives: Hedging and Hedges

4 Keys to Growing Lavender

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English Lavender is not really a native plant, so it doesn’t grow happily just anywhere. If your location meets these requirements, your plants should thrive:

1. Sun

Lavender is a Mediterranean plant. It needs full sun for most of the day to look its best.

2. Free Draining Soil

Lavender hates damp soil.
Establishing Lavender plants must be watered in dry weather, though: soak the soil every 3 days in summer if there is no rain.

3. Air Circulation

Lavender grows best out in the open, with the wind in its hair, not crowded by lots of other, taller plants. It is very wind resistant.

4. Regular Clipping

Lavender should be clipped hard every autumn and can be trimmed lightly once in spring.
This will keep the plants looking young, densely bushy and producing lots of flowers.

Read more about planting lavender here.

Give Lavender its first trim in February or Early March

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This post is a bit late for getting in a February trim, but since the weather hasn’t been great this year we think your Lavender deserves a bit of a rest first (phew, I got away with that one!).

Our school of thought on Lavender clipping is to do it twice a year:

  • A light trim in late February / early March – right about now at the time of posting.
  • A hard trim after flowering, sometime in August.

The first trim needs be done by early March. This is the trim that tidies up your plants for summer and encourages lots of flowers.

Lavender that was planted last year must not be spared!
If it often fine to let a shrub settle in for its first year with little or no trimming, but with Lavender it is essential to trim it young.  This forces it to make lots of leaf buds close to the centre of the plant, which forms a strong base for the future.

The second trim should n0t be left too late. The new growth needs time to harden up before the weather gets cold.
If the weather turns frosty early, it won’t hurt to cover up your plants for the first few frosts to give them a bit more time.

Be ruthless with this August trimming! If Ruth wants to join in, ask her politely to sit this one out.
Trim every stem so that about 2cms (at most) of new growth from the previous year is left. Your plants will look pretty sad when you are finished. They will grow back a bit before the end of autumn and look beautifully neat for winter.

Flowering Forsythia in February – Unless you Clipped in Winter!

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All over the country, yellow star shaped flowers are lighting up in streamers along the upright, arching branches of Forsythia bushes and hedgerows.

The most popular garden variety is Forsythia x intermedia Spectabilis. It can be grown as a dense, functional hedge plant, a sinuous small tree or pruned into a vigorous shrub.

But you might well see many Forsythia hedges looking quite sad right now, with lots of bushy, bare twigs and few flowers.

These sparsely decorated hedges were trimmed in winter – this was bit of a mistake, because most of the maturing flower buds got chopped off.

Winter is a fine time to trim a hedge from the plant’s point of view, but because you also want to admire the flowers of Forsythia, or other spring-summer flowering plants like Choisya ternata, you have to trim it soon after it flowers in spring or early summer.

It’s good to be rough with this trim: Try to cut off all of the parts of the stems that had flowers on them, ideally cutting back to nice bud or side shoot.

This will encourage lots of new growth, which have close to a year to mature and then flower.
You can tidy up vigorous shoots in August and even take a little off all over if you enjoy a really neat looking hedge without affecting the flowers much, but I prefer to just leave it be.

Forsythias come from China; they were brought here by a great-grandfather of Bruce Forsyth.
The Forsythia intermedia hyrid was first crossed in Germany in the 1870′s.

The pictures above were taken on the same day in Bristol and all the plants were in sunny locations.

Why Buy English Lavender Plants?

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English Lavender Plants, Lavandula angustifolia, are the best choice for planting out in the open in the UK: that’s why we don’t sell any other kind.
We Guarantee all our plants, so we like to grow the toughest ones!

Lavenders come from around the Mediterranean world.
Spanish Lavender varieties, Lavandula stoechas, are one of the most popular, with their grape shaped, intricate flower heads. However, they are quite tender – a harsh winter cold snap like the one we just had would be a bit much for them.

Lavandula angustifolia was brought here in large amounts about 500 years ago and it quickly hopped from Britain to the newly seized American colonies – this is how a Mediterranean bush gained the name “English Lavender”.

From lavender’s point of view, an average British garden with rich soil and not too much direct sun is quite an extreme environment – if it was much colder and wetter, it would be impossible to live there.

This is why lavender plants are ideal for growing in pots – they can be sheltered in winter, moved into the sun in summer and the pot can be kept much less damp than the ground during long periods of wet weather.

The lavender you buy from us can be grown in pots and it also comes recommended for  planting out in the garden, facing the snow and damp.

Planting Lavender Outdoors:

If possible, put them in a place that has an echo of the Mediterranean: the sunny side of the garden or the dry patch of soil beside the shed.

If your soil is rocky / sandy and free draining, that’s great – just mix in a little manure/compost at planting time.

If you have a moist soil and want to make things better for your lavender, the best thing is to dig lots of old manure into it until you’ve raised the level by at least 6-10 inches.