French Butterfly Lavender

Order French Butterfly Lavender Now For Delivery From April

• When your order is ready: your mail order hedge plants are delivered by next working day courier (not the next working day after ordering!)
• Friendly support: if there is anything wrong with your plants when you inspect them, Contact Us within 5 working days
• UK Grown: using peat free compost

Delivery Prices

A typical delivery charge for potted shrubs like Lavender is £8 to £15, depending on the order size, if there are no larger plants like trees in the order as well.

Delivery is calculated automatically during checkout after you enter your delivery address.

Delivery Season

Lavender should be planted into warm soil.

If you plant it too early, before nighttime temperatures rise, the roots get shocked and set back, which is especially bad for little plants.

• The smallest lavenders, in P9 pots, are never shipped before May
• The larger pot sizes are usually shipped from the end of April, but cold weather like we had this year can delay

Delivery Lead Time

• Typically 2 weeks if the plant is in stock, rather than available to order before its delivery season
• We process orders in batches to keep costs low
• We keep you notified by email

Choosing a pot size

• For window boxes and other containers, starting with the smallest, cheapest plants in P9 pots is great because it pots these little plants up while putting them to use ornamentally If you plant P9s out directly, the best time is late-May into June when the soil is warm and there is plenty of growing time before Winter
• For quick borders, hedges and edges, or single shrubs that provide instant impact, larger plants in 2 litre pots are ideal. You get more root and more flower in the first year, and they do not look lost planted as a hedge at one every 13" (33cm)
• For filling a spot in a mature flower border with a lavender muffin-mound, or for a truly instant lavender hedge, 5 Litre pots are the largest we grow. We reckon Lavender sold in pot sizes larger than 5L has a higher failure rate in its first Winter.

How many plants per metre? 

Spacing a Lavender hedge: Like most evergreen hedging, the default spacing is 3 per metre, 33cm apart in a single row. 

Choose A French Lavender Variety for Me

• Regal Splendour has it all: great colour on a compact plant, ideal for containers. 
• Snowman is the best white flowering Lavender - no surprise, given that butterfly lavenders have the best flowers anyway.

Growing Lavender

Read our full guide on how to grow lavender, with a quick Autumn pruning video.

Lavender FAQs

• What's the difference between English, Dutch, and French "Butterfly" Lavenders?
• Can I grow Lavender in the Shade?
• Which Lavender variety is best for cooking?
• Harvesting Lavender Flowers for Oil or For Drying
• Potted Lavender 8:8:8 Watering Rule - More of a Guideline, really

Best Hardy Lavender Varieties for the North of England, and Scotland?

French lavenders are RHS Hardiness Rated H4 (-10C to -5C), and are generally grown in pots that can be moved to shelter in the UK's colder regions, or wrapped with fleece. 

In inland Northern & Scottish gardens, use English Lavender or Dutch Lavender instead, both of which are RHS Hardiness Rated H5 (-15C to -10C).

Planting Lavender

• Lavender prefers a sunny, dry, windy site, and cannot tolerate damp soil in Winter.
• Plant outdoors in warm, well worked soil from late April at the earliest, through to early August.
• Plant in pots at any time, using a sandy, well-draining potting mix.

To keep the base of the plants above heavy clay ground, try creating mounds or ridges to help drainage and air flow, using added organic matter and large particle sand (not smooth sand) or pea grit mixed into the clay.

Lavender Care

• Pruning each autumn is essential to keep them bushy and floriferous. Avoid hard pruning into old woody growth beyond a visible leaf bud, even a tiny one is fine.
• Regular dead-heading throughout the season will promote repeat flowering.
• Trimming in spring is not essential, but keeps plants tight and bushy and flowering at their peak. 

Lavender's aesthetic appeal naturally declines after about a decade in most locations, even with diligent care, so it pays to take cuttings from older plants as their replacements! 

Which Lavender Species is Best?

There are 3 main Lavender species widely grown in the UK

Lavandula stoechas and L. pedunculata are both known as French or Spanish Lavender, and have distinctive "butterfly ears" (calling them "rabbit wings" would be silly) on top of their flowerheads, which are simply more beautiful than any other species.

They are a bit less hardy and really appreciate a sheltered sun-trap in the North & Scotland, where growing them in pots and taking them into shelter during winter will ensure they look great come Spring.

• L. angustifolia / officinalis is English Lavender, which is hardy and the best species for cooking and aromatherapy with its sweeter, overall more soothing scent.
• L. intermedia is Dutch Lavender or Lavandin. Hardy. Best species for pot-pourri, candles, and insect repellents due to its stronger, more stimulating camphor-rich fragrance.

All varieties can be clipped into low ornamental hedges, ideal for edging the base of borders and planting around the feet of taller shrubs like roses.

Being of Mediterranean coastal origin, they thrive in a poor, free draining soil with full sun and good air flow. 

The original French Butterfly Lavender is Lavandula stoechas, which is perhaps improved in the very similar cultivar Victorie. It has two excellent larger cultivars: the darker purple-blue Provencal, and the more vivid purple Regal Splendour. And in a league of its own, Snowman, the best white flowering Lavender variety around!