Lavender is cold hardy, drought tolerant, loved by bees, and one of the most forgiving plants you can grow in a British garden — provided you get two things right: drainage and sun. Everything else is detail. This guide covers the detail.

We grow all our lavender plants here in the UK and only dispatch when conditions are right for planting, which for lavender means warm soil — typically from late April onwards. If your plants have just arrived and you want to get them in the ground, skip straight to When and How to Plant.

Which Type of Lavender Should I Grow?

There are three groups of lavender commonly grown in British gardens, and they behave quite differently. Choosing the right one for your site matters more than anything you do after planting.

English lavender (Lavandula angustifolia) is the hardiest and longest-lived group. It handles cold winters, poor soil, and exposed sites without complaint. The scent is sweet and floral — this is the lavender for cooking, for cutting, and for lining a path where you brush past it every day. Hidcote is the bestseller for good reason: deep purple-blue flowers, compact habit, RHS AGM. Munstead is a fraction taller with a softer blue and, many growers think, the best flavour for baking. Both are fully hardy throughout the UK. In the sunnier South, all English varieties will be fine outdoors in suitably well-drained soil.

Dutch lavender (Lavandula × intermedia), also called Lavandin, is a natural hybrid between English lavender and Spike lavender. The plants are bigger — 60cm to well over a metre — with longer flower spikes and a stronger, more camphor-rich scent that is prized for oil, pot-pourri, and candle-making. They are fully hardy and suitable for growing outdoors in most of the UK. Grosso is the world's most widely grown variety for oil production. Phenomenal has the best winter foliage of any lavender we sell — it comes through a rough winter looking noticeably better than Hidcote.

French butterfly lavender (Lavandula stoechas) has the showiest flowers — fat heads topped with petal-like "ears" — but it is the least hardy. In mild southern and coastal gardens it can survive outdoors year round. In colder or wetter areas, it will stay attractive and healthy for longer in a pot that you bring indoors over winter, to a conservatory or a big south-facing window. Papillon is the classic butterfly type.

Not sure which to pick? For most gardens, start with English lavender. If you want a taller hedge or you grow for scent and oil, try a Dutch variety. If you have a sheltered sunny patio and want something more exotic, French butterfly lavender is hard to resist.

When and How to Plant Lavender

Don't plant lavender out too early in spring. The cold soil will shock the roots, and the plant will establish more slowly than one planted later into warm ground. In most years, for most of the UK, wait until warm nights arrive in May, even June in the coldest northern regions. We only start delivering lavender from April onwards, and we will delay dispatch if conditions are unseasonably cold.

There is no benefit to rushing it. By autumn, lavender planted in late June will have completely outstripped the same stock planted at the beginning of a chilly April.

Autumn planting is possible with larger pot sizes (2L and above) in mild regions, but spring is always the lower-risk option.

Choosing Your Spot

Like most plants with tough, narrow, silvery leaves, lavender loves a hot, open, sunny position, facing south or west. It needs full sun for most of the day — at least six hours of direct sunlight. It tolerates a little shade but does not like growing right under trees, even if they cast only light shade. It thrives by the sea, it is wind resistant, and deer and rodents are not interested in mature foliage (they might nibble the fresh green spring growth).

It makes sense to plant where you pass by often, so you can enjoy the fragrance.

Can I grow lavender in shade? Every garden resource will tell you no, and they are right — it needs full sun to thrive. That does not stop people planting it on the dark side anyway. A healthy plant in a 1-litre pot or larger has enough stored energy to look reasonable for a year or two in low light, but it will get lanky, sparse, and flower poorly. You could treat it as a short-lived perennial that you replace every few years, but honestly — plant it in the sun.

Did you know? Lavender is the most misplanted plant in the UK, because people love it so much that they put it in damp shady corners regardless of the fact it won't last.

Soil and Drainage

Good drainage is the single most important thing. Lavender can tolerate severe cold by British standards, but cold wet soil around the roots in winter will kill it. If your soil waterlogs in winter, your lavender will deteriorate quickly.

The best soil for lavender is poor and free-draining. The richer the soil, the less fragrant your plants will be, and the shorter their attractive lifespan. Rich soil produces more foliage, fewer flowers, and plants that age faster in the sense of getting leggy. Dry, poorly fertile ground is ideal — do not add anything to improve it unless you are on close to pure sand, in which case a sprinkle of compost will help them establish.

The ideal pH is neutral to alkaline. Lavender does brilliantly on shallow chalk. If your soil is slightly acidic, adding lime will help — a handful per square metre in spring is usually enough, but follow the instructions on the packet.

Lavender on Heavy Clay

Lavender will tolerate clay soil, given a warm, sunny position where water doesn't linger — like at the top of a bank. But plants on clay tend to become woodier at the base and shorter-lived.

You have several options to improve drainage:

• Dig in plenty of horticultural sand and grit, with a bit of low-fertility soil improver like leaf mould, coconut coir, or potting compost.
• Mound up the soil for single plants, or make a ridge for a hedge, and plant into the top of it. 50cm high is plenty.
• Grow in pots, which is honestly easier than trying to fix a whole clay bed.

A word of warning: Beware of creating a soggy sump, where you improve the drainage in a small pocket but the heavier soil surrounding it funnels water straight in. Spread your amendments over a wider area to avoid this.

Preparing the Ground

Dig over the area, remove weeds and detritus thoroughly — much easier now than later. Break up any compaction so new roots can spread rapidly both down and sideways.

Do not enrich the soil with compost, manure, or fertiliser. The only thing worth using at planting time is Rootgrow mycorrhizae, which helps root establishment without adding fertility.

If the weather is cold in the run-up to planting, covering the area with black plastic for a couple of weeks before your plants arrive will help raise the soil temperature.

Plant at the same depth as the pot. Firm in gently and water well. After that, water only when the soil has dried out.

Which Size Plant Should I Buy?

The starting size affects the cost and the speed of establishment into a mature, hard-working plant with lots of flowers.

P9 pots (9cm) are a year old and the cheapest option. They're ideal for window boxes, for large hedge orders where cost matters, and for experienced growers who like to shape plants from small. Plant them out from the end of May when the soil is warm. Do not plant P9s out late in the season — they won't have time to establish before winter. If it's already July or August, pot them up into 1-litre pots, keep them in a sheltered place over winter, and plant out the following spring.

2-litre pots give you more root, more flower in the first year, and a hedge that fills in faster. They cost roughly twice as much as a P9 but can go out from late April. At 33cm spacing, the row should have joined up by the end of the first summer. This is our most popular size.

5-litre pots provide near-instant impact and are a good choice for specimen plants or filling a gap in an established border.

If you are shopping at a garden centre for even larger plants, we don't recommend pot sizes above 5 litres. They are expensive, and the results are often uneven. If large plants are on a special offer, they may have outgrown their pot and be too root-bound to establish well elsewhere.

Planting a Lavender Hedge

For a proper hedge, plant at roughly half the mature width apart. In practice, this means three per metre (33cm spacing) for English lavenders like Hidcote and Munstead. For the larger Dutch varieties like Grosso, space at 45cm. For the tallest Lavandin, Vera, allow 60cm.

At the end of the first summer after planting — maybe the following spring if you plant late — the plants will have started to join up. Don't neglect a trim all over the sides to encourage bushiness, even if they still look small. This pays off the following year, when the seams between plants fill in with more flower buds.

For a looser row of lavender mounds that are more or less joined up while in flower, but not a tight formal hedge, increase the spacing by 10–15cm from the figures above. After two or three years, the plants will be close to a solid mass in summer, with some gaps visible after the autumn trim.

Growing Lavender in Pots

Lavender is excellent in containers. It likes the warmth and sharp drainage that a pot naturally provides, and for French butterfly types in cooler regions, a pot is really the only sensible option since you can move it under cover for winter.

The best potting mix for lavender is a loam-based compost (John Innes No. 3), mixed with about a quarter total grit, perlite, or sharp sand by volume. Make sure the pot has decent drainage holes. Terracotta breathes better than plastic and dries out faster — exactly what lavender wants.

Water regularly through summer — potted lavender cannot access groundwater the way plants in the soil can — but never leave the pot sitting in a saucer of water. Let the compost dry out between waterings.

A small dose of slow-release fertiliser each spring from the second year onwards is all the feeding it needs. Limited fertiliser means more flowers without surplus leaf growth. As plants age, you can avoid repotting by removing the top layer of compost each spring and replacing it with fresh.

How to Prune Lavender

Pruning is the single most important piece of aftercare, and it is necessary to keep your lavender dense, bushy, and covered in flowers. Without it, plants get leggy, gappy, and woody within a few years. With it, you can keep a plant compact and flowering well for a decade or more. The aim is to constantly rejuvenate the plant with trimming, slowing the ageing process and stopping it from becoming floppy and needing early replacement.

We have a separate pruning guide with video, but here is the summary.

First Cut of the Year: Spring Trim

In late February to late March, trim your plants lightly — removing only the new, more green growth that appeared over late winter and early spring. Think of it as a shave, not a prune. This encourages twice as many new flowering shoots, and pushes new bud growth further down the stem, keeping the plant dense.

Do not prune into the older wood with mature, silvery foliage at this stage. The exception would be emergency renovation on an overgrown plant, where you accept losing some flowers this year.

Second Cut of the Year: Hard Prune Before Autumn

After flowering — by the end of September at the latest — give your plants a hard trim. About 25cm (9–10 inches) tall is a good height to keep English lavender pruned down to. The crucial thing is to cut above at least one set of leaf buds. These buds may be small, but they should be clearly visible pushing out of the stem.

These buds will shoot and have time to harden up before the frosts. The plants will look a bit sad for a short while, but they bounce back and look fine all winter.

Do not cut into bare old wood below the leaf buds. Unlike many shrubs, lavender does not regenerate reliably from old wood, and hard cuts into it often create permanent bald patches.

Optional: Summer Deadheading

If you cut off the spent flower stalks after the first flush around the end of June, you will encourage a stronger second flush of flowers in late summer. The seed heads look quite nice, so you could leave them — the plant will still produce new flowers, just less strongly.

Did you know? Lavender is the most underpruned plant in the UK, because people are afraid of cutting into the brown wood. It's not the brown wood that matters — it's the leaf buds underneath. If you always cut above a visible leaf bud, even a tiny one peeking out of the bark, you should be fine.

Can I Prune Lavender in Spring Instead?

You can hard prune in spring instead of late summer if you need to, but it's not the typical method in the UK. Spring hard pruning will delay flowering and probably reduce the total number of flowers over the season. It is better than skipping the prune entirely, but late summer remains the recommended time. Read more in our article on pruning lavender in spring vs autumn.

Watering, Feeding, and Ongoing Care

Water thoroughly in dry weather for the first growing season. Soak the ground, then let the soil almost dry out before watering again. Weed around the plants — always easier when the weeds are small.

After the first growing season, lavender in most gardens should never need watering again. If your soil is very dry and sandy, continue to water in dry weather at the start of the second growing season. Overwatering established lavender is far more common than drought stress in British gardens.

Do not feed lavender in the ground — the poorer the soil, the better the flowers. Potted plants are the exception (see Growing Lavender in Pots above).

Clean out fallen leaves from underneath your plants in autumn, as these can trap damp against the stems.

Pests and Diseases

Lavender is very disease resistant. Problems are almost always indicators that the site is too damp and/or too shady, rather than an actual pathogen. Prune off Dead, Damaged, or Diseased (DDD) wood as soon as it appears. Disinfect your pruning tools between cuts if there are signs of disease. Dispose of diseased material rather than composting it.

You may occasionally see frothy blobs of "cuckoo spit" in the joints between stems — this is caused by froghoppers and does no harm at all. Wash it off with water if it bothers you, but it can be safely ignored.

How Long Does Lavender Last?

Lavender has a limited lifespan of looking its best — the dense foliage and profuse flowers that we all love to see. With good drainage, full sun, and diligent annual pruning, a well-sited English lavender will look great for about eight to twelve years. In poor conditions — heavy soil, partial shade, no pruning — the decline can start within five years.

Your best option when a plant starts to go is to replace it. Lavender doesn't suffer from replant disease (unlike roses and fruit trees), so you can plant a new one in exactly the same spot. It can't hurt to swap out some soil from immediately around the roots of the old plant, but it's not strictly necessary.

You can also propagate your own replacements. Lavender roots easily from semi-ripe cuttings taken in late summer, or by layering branches in place to root new plants over a couple of years.

Can I Renovate an Old, Leggy Lavender?

You can try, but success is not guaranteed. The safest approach is to cut back a different quarter of the bush's main branches each autumn, trimming the rest tightly to one or two buds of new growth as normal. Over three or four years, this gives the plant a chance to push new buds from lower down without the shock of a total hard prune. Insulating the plants with fleece in freezing weather will help new buds and soft growth survive.

If the plant is truly bare and woody at the base with no visible buds at all, it is usually better to replace it.

Frequently Asked Questions

When is the best time to plant lavender in the UK?

Late April through June, once the soil has warmed and night temperatures stay reliably above about 8°C. May is ideal for most of the country. In the coldest northern and Scottish gardens, wait until late May or early June. There is no benefit to planting early into cold soil — the roots get shocked and the plant establishes more slowly than one planted later into warm ground.

Can lavender grow in clay soil?

It can, given a warm sunny position where water doesn't linger. Dig in plenty of grit, plant on a raised mound, or grow in pots. Plants on clay tend to be shorter-lived and woodier at the base than those on free-draining soil, but with good drainage amendments they can still perform well for years.

Does lavender need full sun?

Six hours of direct sunlight a day is the minimum; more is better. A south- or west-facing position is ideal. Lavender tolerates a little shade but will become leggy and flower poorly. It does not like growing under trees, even those casting light shade.

How often should I water lavender?

In its first growing season, water when the soil dries out — soak the ground, then let it nearly dry before watering again. After that, established lavender in the ground should not need watering at all in normal British weather. Overwatering is a much more common problem than drought. Potted lavender is different: water regularly through summer but let the compost dry between waterings, and never leave the pot sitting in standing water.

Is lavender safe for cats and dogs?

The plants themselves are not toxic. Cats and dogs can safely brush past lavender in the garden or nibble the odd leaf without harm. Concentrated lavender essential oil is a different matter — it can be harmful to cats in particular if ingested or applied to the skin. But the lavender plant in your border or pot is perfectly safe.

Does lavender come back every year?

English and Dutch lavender are evergreen perennial shrubs. They keep their foliage through winter and flower again each summer without you having to do anything. French butterfly lavender is also perennial but less hardy, so in cold regions it may not survive an outdoor winter without protection. None of them are annuals — a well-cared-for lavender plant can thrive for a decade or more.

Browse our full range of lavender plants for sale, or see our step-by-step lavender pruning guide with video.