How to grow lavenders

Lavender is a low, silvery-leaved perennial shrub grown as much for its structure and scent as for its flower spikes, forming a dense, rounded mound that holds its shape through the season. Gardeners plant it along a walkway or in a raised, sunny bed for the honeybee traffic and the fragrance it releases when brushed, and because a mature plant needs little water once established. It prefers the opposite of what the vegetable garden wants: lean, alkaline, fast-draining soil rather than the rich, moisture-retentive beds built for tomatoes and greens.

The hardest part of growing lavender well is pruning it every year, not only when it looks like it needs it. Ask Extension explains that regular pruning keeps the plant from splitting open and becoming too woody, since unpruned plants grow woody sooner and lose their shape. A second-year gardener who skips pruning while the plant is still flowering fine finds, a year or two later, a shrub with a hollow, splayed center and only a thin shell of live growth. By then it often cannot be cut into old wood and recover; starting over with a new plant is the fix.