There are many flowers and smells and sights to gush about in the spring and summer, but some plants offer pleasures year-round. Lavender is perennial and evergreen. Lavender leaves smell just as strong as the flowers. If you rub the leaves between your fingers the scent will stick with you for awhile. The leaves are a grayish-green in winter. I have both the English and French variety growing. In the winter time you can’t really tell the difference between them.
Lavender bushes will move around your garden a bit. The branches droop down in summer time, to touch the ground and root. I’ve found that the original plant dies eventually, but there will be a thriving bush just a foot or two away from where I planted it. I wind up pulling up the old dead plant eventually but find that I still have plenty of lavender growing. Lavender flowers in early spring. I usually dry some bouquets to keep in the house year-round.
I tell people who ask me how I know to do this or that, that I found the information by doing a little research on the Internet. I found some very thorough instructions on cultivating lavender in the South (United States) at here at Sunshine Lavender Farm. Looking them over reminded me that after Valentine’s Day is the best time to prune my lavender bushes.
