Hi again it's Jason from Fraser Valley Rose Farm and today I want to return to the topic
of lavender that's what i have with me right here now i've addressed this topic
before and how to propagate it both from seed and from cuttings and this cutting
this plant actually came from that video on how to do cuttings last year
i have follow-ups to that video and i can show you in those videos how to get it to this stage and
this stage it's ready it doesn't look like a big plant but you can see that it's rooted all the way
to the sides and bottom of the pot which means now it's ready to get established either for container
growing or to put it out in the landscape and that's what i want to show you how to do today
to grow lavender successfully in either of those ways before i move forward with my instructions
i have to take one step backwards how did i get to this well of course i wanted to get to this
stage where i had excellent rooting all the way around but i also wanted a very branched plant
and you can see that i've pruned that as i've gone that's the step that i want to show now is
i have a container full of soil and i have the kinds of plugs that i've taken this from
you can see this one here was overwintered and it started to shoot brand new shoots
like that so routinely as i pop these younger plants into the gallon size
i give them a prune like this and shorten them out to encourage that additional
branching all the way across the top and also to refresh the growth down low so you take that
pot into a container and i'll show you in the greenhouse where i have a whole new crop of
these that i did about a week ago and how uniform they are and then how it helps them
to maintain more branching and more refreshed growth down low here you
go these are the ones that were done about a week ago and you can see how uniform they are
and these are the ones i potted about a month ago and you can see that i've come back to them since
and pruned these ones as well more branching the better also i top the rest of them in the
meantime you can see i put some fertilizer at the top of the pot that's just to keep
the growth vigorous as i wait to get them into the ground or into larger containers
either way you decide to grow your lavender whether it's in the ground or in a pot like this
there are two things you have to watch for to make sure you are successful and one of them is
watering and the second one is pruning other than those two tricky bits lavender is an easy plant to
grow and widely adaptable to a range of conditions so let's talk about the watering because this is
one area where people take lavender because of its reputation for being a drought-tolerant plant
and they stick it into the ground or stick it into a pot and they don't worry about water that's not
quite right the drought tolerant comes with an asterisk and the asterisk says once established
in the landscape you should never treat a container lavender as if it's drought tolerant and
that's because it relies in the landscape on an extensive root system to pull up moisture from the
surrounding soil here its reservoir of moisture is very limited in a small pot like this it will run
out very quickly and you'll be looking for the signs you'll be looking for wilt of course but
you'll also see a loss of gloss and leaves let's look a little bit grayish look a bit thin i'll
try to put some footage in here so you can see what i'm talking about there's an early warning
sign that your lavender is struggling with a lack of moisture obviously the other thing i'm going
to recommend is go to a larger container you want that reservoir to be larger rather than smaller i
would not recommend growing your lavender anything smaller than about a three gallon pot this is a
three gallon trade pot here about ten ten and a half inches along the rim i know for some people
you may think that's a little bit overkill but truthfully you'll get better results with your
lavender if you can ensure a consistent supply of moisture in a container now as for in the
landscape it takes time to develop that long root system and so you have to actually water regularly
while it's being established if you're putting it in in april and may it may be drought tolerant by
august of that year but early on it's going to need some watering to get its roots in
and it's going to be even better in the second and third year after establishing so watch your
watering that's the first piece of advice you'll note that in my young plants i took lots of pains
to continually prune them back down so that i get that branching down low and rejuvenate the growth
that's also true for adult lavender or established lavender in containers or in the landscape
the point is to allow them to flower let them send up those big long flower spikes they might go up
to 18 inches or a larger lavender might even go up to two or three feet depending on the variety
but after it's done it's flowering you're gonna bring it back down you're gonna bring it back down
into that six inch to nine inch range that's the best range to try to get it to send new shoots
from the base again if you leave it too long the base of the plant will become woody and that is
where the plant is susceptible to overwinter death or die back so you really want to continue to
bring it back down one side advantage of this is that if you bring down your lavender soon enough
in the season and bring it back say when the when the flowers are in early bud you harvest those
for for whatever projects that you're doing you will often get a second flowering of your
lavender within the year so that's an advantage too but again after that second flowering
bring it back down before the winter so that you get that rejuvenated growth around the base
a couple of quick notes on choosing the right location and soil now
lavenders will want to have full sun full sun meaning six hours plus of direct sunlight every
day will make them the most successful the other thing you'll check is for your soil
now if you're putting them into a container you're choosing your own potting soil i would just say an
average potting soil a peat perlite mix is fine i use a bark based mix but as long as it drains
reasonably well you're fine as for the the soil in the garden it's the same deal light and heavy not
really the concern it's more an issue of that you don't plant it in a place that has standing water
for any portion of the year the lavender just will not tolerate standing water around its roots
so it must be a free draining soil i'm going to address one more question here which is i grow
roses of course and often times roses and lavender are pointed out as a classic garden combination
but the problem is that roses do want consistent soil moisture all year round whereas lavender is
a little more drought tolerant and so over the long term your lavender is not the best choice
for a garden companion for roses they just have different moisture requirements overall again
once established the choice i would recommend instead is salvia salvia is a cousin of lavender
that has flowers in the same color range but just seems to enjoy the same garden conditions as roses
more consistently so that's the one i would recommend instead thanks so much for joining me
today on the topic of how to establish lavender both as a container plant or in the landscape i
hope you found it useful if you have any questions on the topic of lavender or any other garden plant
please feel free to drop those into the comments below the video i'll see what i can do to help