Grosso Dutch Lavender Plants

Lavandula intermedia: Grosso Dutch Lavendin Plants

Grosso Dutch Lavender has long, heavily-scented flower spikes with a mass of small deep blue-purple flowers. This long-flowering, vigorous variety is ideal to use as an hedge or specimen shrub. With its grey-green evergreen foliage, Lavender Grosso will add fragrance and structure to the garden all year round.

Have a look at the rest of our lavender range here. Grosso creates a hedge up to about 1m. If you are looking for something taller, you can browse our full range of hedging.

Delivery season: This is weather dependent. At present we expect to have plants ready from the end of April onwards, but if the weather is cold dates can slip into May. There is nothing to be gained from trying to plant lavender out before nighttime temperatures rise consistently as the shock simply sets it back, and it establishes more slowly and flowers less well than lavender planted when everything is warmer. The smallest lavenders, in P9 pots, are never shipped before May in any event. If you are not happy with these potentially uncertain timings, please order elsewhere: we guarantee our plants and like to see them do well...

Choosing a size: Small plants are cheaper and overall more convenient for hedge use, unless instant impact is your priority. If you are only buying a few plants for ornamental use, then you may as well use bigger ones. All our hedge plants are measured by their height in centimetres above the ground (the roots aren't measured).

Features:

• Use: Plant at 60cm intervals for hedges and edges or use as a herbaceous perennial
• Height: 1 m
• Spread: 1 m
• Colour: deep blue/purple flowers
• Shape: long flower spikes
• Aspect: south facing
• Scent: strong, lavender
• Flowering: summer
• Leaves: evergreen, grey-green narrow foliage

Growing Grosso

It prefers a neutral to alkaline, poor to moderately fertile soil in a sheltered position, but it can tolerate acid conditions. It should be grown in full sun and dislikes winter wet, so needs well-drained soil. Grosso is drought-tolerant and very hardy providing it is grown in favourable conditions.

Spacing a Grosso Lavender hedge:
Best planted at 60cm apart for a really nice tight formal hedge, but it will still look fine with a looser 90cms spacing.

Good in Your Garden

Lavender is a wonderfully versatile shrub, capable of being clipped in formal schemes or left to grow into a more informal, looser shape. Its evergreen foliage makes it ideal to add winter structure to borders and hedges. When clipped into domes, lavender makes a great spring backdrop for the elegant globe flowers of alliums.

In summer, the violet-blue flower spikes blend perfectly with the blues, pinks, purples and whites of catmint, agastache, clematis and geranium in a pastel-themed border, creating continuity between the early summer roses and autumn-flowering perennials. For a more striking, contemporary look, try combining lavender with the contrasting yellows and oranges of achillea, kniphofia, crocosmia and echinacea.

Did You Know?

In America, this variety is sold under the name Dilly Dilly, after the old folk song:

Lavender's blue, dilly dilly, Lavender's green,
When I am king, dilly, dilly, you shall be queen.
Who told you so, dilly, dilly, who told you so?
'Twas my own heart, dilly, dilly, that told me so.

Call up your men, dilly, dilly, set them to work
Some with a rake, dilly, dilly, some with a fork.
Some to make hay, dilly, dilly, some to thresh corn.
While you and I, dilly, dilly, keep ourselves warm.

Lavandula x intermedia is known as lavandin or Dutch lavender as it originates from the Netherlands. It is a cross between Lavandula angustifolia (English lavender) and Lavandula latifolia (Portuguese lavender), and typically grows to a larger size than English lavender.

Lavandin is often grown commercially as its long flower spikes produce more oil than English lavender. The scent is, however, of an inferior quality, so lavandin tends to be used for dried flowers and fragrant oils. It takes an astonishing 100-130kg of flowers to produce just 1kg of lavender essence.

Flowers & Bees: Grosso is one of the RHS Plants for Pollinators due to the high levels of pollen and nectar produced by the flowers. During the summer months, lavender attracts many pollinating insects to the garden bringing the borders and hedges alive with the sound of buzzing.