Hey, good morning, it's Jason from Fraser Valley rose farm and today
I wanted to talk to you about the different types of lavender
You can grow in your garden
now most people first fall in love with lavender either by images of or by visiting
France or Italy or Spain where they have those beautiful
Lavender fields and you can imagine those with those beautiful straight rows of the of the gorgeous
Blue flowers and the scent the that lavender scent they use it for perfume
they use it for those cut stems that are that are wonderfully soothing and calming and so if that's the kind of lavender that you're
Interested in that's the first type I'll talk about after that
I'll also talk about some other varieties that are excellent for the garden as well, but maybe not quite so highly scented
so the first group I wanted to talk about is the
English lavender and I should say right up front that English lavender is not native to England
It just got that name to contrast it
I guess
From other varieties of lavender that are rather called French lavender or Spanish lavender and are a little more suitable to a warmer climate
Whereas the english lavender is tends to grow well in a cooler climate as well. I have some English lavender with me here and
Unfortunately, it's not much to see right now because it's getting ready for winter. It's it's now it's November here
So it's starting to toughen up and harden off its nicely. Well branch
so this will be a beautiful plant next year and thank you to Valleybrook Gardens for lending me the pot but
It's it's not much to see in terms of the flowers right now. I also have
one of these Spanish lavender varieties with me here and again
You can't tell much right now because it's it's tight and ready for next year
But I will talk about those varieties here and give you some pictures as well
So first I wanted to go over the characteristics of English lavender. So the characteristics of English lavender lavandula angustifolia
It is
characterized most predominantly by its beautiful scent
It is actually the nicest scented of the lavenders a nice gentle complex
Relaxing scent and when they talk about distilling oil from lavender, this is the one that's characterized by the highest quality of oil
I'll also say that as I maintain it in the garden here and take stems
They hold their scent quite nicely and they mark it quite well. So I love this this plant
It is quite variable
You can get a lot of different variety in the English Lavender all the way from in color from white through pink
Lavender (violet) of course to basically a true blue color. They vary in height quite a lot as well
You can get ones that are a bit shorter. You can get ones that are a bit taller
And ones that bloom early in the season some saloum a little bit later and some that even bloom
Repeatedly, it is Hardy to zone 5. So it's when they call it English lavender
It's because of the hardiness to some degree and so it's hard to zone 5
Unlike some of the other lavenders which are much more tender in terms of varieties. You can get varieties like Munstead -
Hidcote is a popular variety
Royal Velvet is a third variety. On the farm here
I will say I've selected my variety for next year that I'll be starting from seed and I've chosen hid coat from Julito
It's a Hidcotesuperior. I'll show you a
Screenshot of what I purchased here, but those are the seeds. I'll be starting next year
the next variety I want to discuss is lavendula x
intermedia or sometimes they call this variety lavandin and it's also used as a
aroma or a scented oil lavender
Except this one has a much stronger scent. It's that one that you would associate with soapy
Menthol based sense of lavender that you find in many products, so it's much stronger
It's much higher yielding and they use that in the industry as well
Now in terms of its variability and the kinds that you can get it's much less varied
It's also a hardy variety of lavender about to zone 5
But it's characterized by thicker
coarser stems
Usually a characteristic quite a gray color to the foliage taller flowers
Usually not singly born not one flower
but usually three on a stem and
A very narrow range of colors usually just in that violet or violet blue color
of lavender now the
Previous one the English lavender I was talking about you can get a lot of different variety
Both from seed and from cutting with the lavend and varieties that it's intermedia variety I'm talking about now
You can only get it by cuttings. So it's only available
You have to find a source or a supplier of it and then you can only produce it by cuttings and I will be showing
I will be making a video in this coming season to show you how to do lavender by cuttings
I'll also be growing them from seed. So I'll show you both ways
But the main thing of course is that if you have one that has to be done by cuttings
Then you have to obtain the plant first grow it to a stage that's good for cuttings, and then you can start your propagation
Okay, having discussed the English lavender and the lavandin as cut varieties or oil varieties
Which are both
Decent garden plants as well
Although I probably think the English lavender is the better of the two in terms of an ornamental plant
Now I want to talk about two other plants that are maybe not so much used
For their scent not so much used for their oils
They have a nice gentle moderate scent, but they wouldn't be used for oil extraction for sure
But are beautiful for as ornamental plants
And the first one of those two that I'll talk about is one called Spanish lavender or lavendula Stoechas
is characterized by big
beautiful prominent flowers with these these I guess flags you would call them or
colored bracts that last a long time
It's the champ as far as a flowering lavender goes in terms of ornamental value it
Blooms early it blooms often it blooms
Repeatedly and those flowers are large and impressive and come in a wide range of colors
This is another one that you can grow from seed or by cuttings
Although many of the best varieties are produced by cuttings one of the most prominent
Varieties, that's well
Known is a variety called
Anouk which just has big prominent long lasting flowers and has kind of been the industry standard for a long time now
The Spanish lavenders are not as Hardy as the English lavender
You might see them Hardy to about zone 6 or zone 7
They also will handle heat in the summer a lot better than the English lavenders
Will they perform well in warmer varieties or warmer climates? And that's one of their characteristics
The final one I want to talk about here is a lesser-known lavender
You may find it in the stores as well called lavendula dentata
It's the fringed lavender or toothed lavender
you can see in the foliage that it has this fringed pattern that actually
You know catches the cultural memory of lavender somehow, so it's actually an older variety. It's great in containers
But it has a couple of drawbacks. First of all, the flowers are not particularly conspicuous
It's not extremely well scented and it's tender it's only like zone 8 or zone 9
So if if you find that in the store and you want to use it in containers, you know
It makes a nice impression and it has beautiful looking foliage
But as far as an ornamental variety goes I would definitely stick back to the Spanish
Lavender that the one with the big flowers or the English lavender, which is again, very very impressive has smaller flowers
but the ornamental affect of English lavender is
Outstanding so as I say I'm gonna be talking in the spring about how to propagate both of these
from both seed and from cuttings
So if you want to hear about that
You may consider subscribing to the channel and we have any questions about the different types and varieties of lavenders in the meantime
This is the time of year to think about it. This is the time of year
you're planting or sir planning before you plant and
So if you have any questions leave those below the video and thank you so much for watching