Lavandula angustifolia Hidcote - the perfect dark blue edging plant

Lavandula angustifolia Hidcote

Hidcote lavender is the most popular lavender in the UK. Quintessentially British, it is ideal as a low hedging and edging plant equally at home in rose borders and kitchen gardens. The flowers are an imperial, deep purple with a good balance between the height of its foliage and flower spikes. Hidcote is bushy and silver grey washed leaves are needle shaped but a little shorter than those of other English lavenders such as Alba or Munstead or Rosea and, although there is not much in it, Hidcote Lavender is the smallest of the three overall. It grows more steadily than Munstead but retains its scent wonderfully throughout the summer and even after its flowers have been dried. As with all our lavender plants neither mice nor rabbits nor deer can abide them making them almost pest-proof.

PLEASE NOTE: Delivery of lavender is weather dependent. In a warm spring we start shipping as early as April but if the weather is cold it can slip into May. There is nothing to be gained from trying to plant it out before night time temperatures rise consistently. The shock simply sets it back and it will establish more slowly and flower less well than lavender planted when everything is warmer. P9 lavenders are never shipped before the beginning of May in any event. If you are not happy with these timings, please order elsewhere - we guarantee our plants and like to see them do well.

Lines of Lavender

Grown as a hedge, Hidcote lavender's silvery foliage reflects the light onto whatever it surrounds. Its narrow, evergreen leaves are a joy throughout the year; the flowers a mere bonus. Left to itself Hidcote lavender forms a rounded, palest green-grey bush that adds structure in a herbaceous bed. Lavenders play an enormously important role in any eco-garden being fantastic pollinators for other plants because they are irresistible to bees and butterflies so you can often see a miasma of whirring wings above them, reason enough to grow them and especially if you have fruit trees or a veg patch. The violet Hidcote provides a good foil to pink roses like Nathalie Nypels , Princess Alexandra of Kent or Souvenir de la Malmaison. In a potager, Hidcote lavender makes a welcome change from Box (Buxus sempevirens) when used as elegant, dark flowered edging for a bed full of herbs which often have purple flowers themselves. Being reasonably petite, Hidcote makes a good front to an herbaceous border to soften the boundary between border and grass or gravel. There is an art to keeping lavender going year in and year out and preventing it from becoming woody. Cut it back by two thirds in the second half of August once the flowers have faded. Nowadays the experts say that if necessary you can even cut into the bare wood if you do it at this time because our warm autumns mean that the new shoots that will quickly arise at the base of the bush will have enough time to grow and harden up before winter comes. And if you want to be sure that your lavender will combine and follow on from the main flush of June roses then you can delay its flowering time by giving it another quick and very light trim in April.

Features:

• Use: Plant at 33cm intervals for hedges and edges or use as a herbaceous perennial
• Height: 45 cm
• Spread: 45 cm
• Colour: dark purple flowers
• Shape: medium spike
• Aspect: south facing
• Scent: strong, lavender
• Flowering: summer
• Leaves: evergreen, silvery-green

And why Hidcote?

Hidcote Manor is in Gloucestershire and was bought by Lawrence Johnston’s mother. Lawrence went on to create this famous Arts and Crafts garden, beginning in 1910. He chose his plants meticulously, and selected this narrow leaved lavender along with a Penstemon 'HIdcote Pink' and a St John's Wort 'Hidcote Gold'.