Luring Gardeners’ Purple Hearts
Julie Strnad has only three lavender plants in her Mar Vista garden, but that’s all she needs. In fact, she could get by with just one: an English lavender she planted four years ago. It rivals her height--5 feet, 4 inches--and is several times bigger around, providing an endless supply of flowers for her projects and cooking.
There is only one drawback. “I always feel like I should be doing more with it,” said Strnad, grabbing a handful of stems from the plant to fashion a sachet wand. “The trick to keeping it going and beautiful is cutting it.”
A native of Wichita, Kan., Strnad had never seen lavender in the garden until she moved to Los Angeles 16 years ago. “I thought you had to go to France,” she said. With a bias toward plants that are useful, Strnad found in lavender a perfect garden fit. “I was totally enamored.”
Lavender has been around for thousands of years. The ancient Greeks used it in baths. During the Middle Ages, it was used to repel insects and to mask bad odors. Queen Victoria is said to have used it for everything from washing the floors to scenting the linens to curing headaches. More recently, it has gained in popularity as a landscaping tool and a versatile herb used in everything from sachets to lemonade.
A native of the Mediterranean, lavender is at home in Southern California. It loves sun, is not too fond of water, likes a well-drained soil and would just as soon be left alone as fed. It also grows quickly, with some types reaching 3 to 4 feet tall, bearing a wealth of flowers. Harvesting the flower stems is rewarding for the rich calming scent it produces and will help encourage more growth, but anyone who has spent a prolonged period of time snipping each little stem might think twice about whether they want to do it again.
Johnna Ornbaun, who three years ago began farming lavender on a ranch in Williams, Calif., remembers her naive approach to the first harvest: “We had scissors out there cutting every stem. It took forever.” She soon found a solution to the tedium--purchasing electric grass clippers, which make it possible to harvest an entire row of lavender in an hour.
When cutting lavender to use the flowers, many experts recommend harvesting just as the first flowers begin to open. At this point, the oils are most concentrated. They can then be either tied in bunches by their stems and hung upside down or spread out in a well-ventilated area and left to dry. Strnad has chosen not to prune her English lavender. Instead, she opts for a steady supply of flowers that are produced by constantly cutting the stems before they go to seed.
But the end result is not necessarily pretty. Left to its own device, lavender tends to become little more than a sweet-smelling tumbleweed, overgrown and woody.
Lavender should be pruned annually. Although opinions vary on how much to take plants back, larger varieties can easily lose a third to half their growth. Low-growing varieties need only be trimmed back an inch or two. Ornbaun said she harvests the flowers as they are ready and then prunes her plants in late February to provide a fresh start in the spring.
Jan Smithen, who teaches at the Arboretum of Los Angeles County in Arcadia, said she takes her lead from lavender farmers in France who cut back their plants once a year as they harvest. “I usually cut mine now,” said Smithen, noting that lavender does its growing during the winter. Smithen said it’s important to remember that lavender does not like summer water.
Growing it in rich soil with regular irrigation will actually shorten its life span, which is typically from seven to 10 years. However, as a popular companion plant with roses and in cottage gardens, it frequently gets over-tended.
Still, if killing lavender with kindness is not the end of the world. Lavender plants are fairly inexpensive to buy and easy to propagate. Simply cut a stem with an inch or two of foliage and a similar amount of woody stem. Cut the stem on an angle and then place it in a pot with well-drained soil.
When buying lavender, Smithen recommends nothing bigger than a 1-gallon container. A 4-inch pot would be even better since it’s cheaper and lavender grows so fast.
The most common types of lavenders found in California are English, Lavandula angustifolia;, French, L. dentata; and Spanish, L. stoechas. English lavender is often preferred for cooking because it’s sweeter and milder than other types. The flower is used in dishes both sweet (ice cream) and savory (lamb). It is also heavily favored for fragrance purposes along with L. x intermedia, hedge lavender.
Ornbaun said on her farm she grows predominantly L. x intermedia ‘Grosso’ Other varieties are popular because of what they lend to the landscape. The dentatas along with L. multifida, fernleaf lavender, have interesting foliage and bloom for much of the year.
The Spanish lavenders have a particularly intriguing flower that looks as if purple bumblebee wings have sprouted on the top. But they serve only as a starting point; there are numerous species and, beyond that, a wealth of cultivars ranging in size, color and texture.
When buying plants, keep in mind that many varieties and hybrids have proliferated over the years and that variety names are not always correct on nursery labels. Smithen recommends double-checking with the nursery if the plant is to be used for a special purpose. “When you’re talking about lavender, it’s hard to be clear.” But, she adds, even if a mistake is made, “Chances are you’re going to like it.”
