Midweek Musings #4

Quick and easy lavender pruning and a video chat from the walled garden.

My lavender borders at the weatherboard house.

Hello from the barn garden. Pour yourself a glass of something fabulous. I know it’s only Wednesday, but why not, it’s sunny! This week I have a short video for you. I’m in the garden showing you a very easy way to prune lavender. I’ll also be chatting about my other garden plans.

I’m a little behind on some of my garden jobs as the oak beam stripping, painting of walls and the installation of the glass has taken up most of my time. I still have quite a few beams left to do, but I’ll be showing you the finished switchable glass partitions in the mezzanine this weekend. Can’t wait for you to see it!

Lavender pruning

I have a long history with lavender. I think it has to be my favourite plant other than Astrantia and Hydrangeas. In the garden of our Surrey weatherboard home, some four houses ago, I planted two enormous borders with a mix of over 100 Hidcote, Munstead and Lollo Grosso Lavender plants at the front of our house. They graced either side of the staircase leading to the blue front door. In the height of a balmy summer (remember those?) it was a veritable paradise for the bees and butterflies and the scent in the air so strong it made you want to curl up in a hammock and snooze away the afternoon.

The borders were on a slope and along with two more lavender borders in the back garden, it would take me days of toil to prune all the shrubs come August. That was until I discovered my little handy electric portable pruner though! Many gardening instagram accounts have since copied it, but I assure you I was the first to show how easy it was. I originally bought it to prune all my box balls, but found it wasn’t that great for that, the cut wasn’t clean enough. But, for lavender it was perfect and saved me so much time. It’s by Bosch and you can get your hands on one here. There’s a less expensive option on Amazon, but this one is easier to use and comes with gloves.

To illustrate how simple it is I’ve made a little video for you below. I currently only have my two rattan planters of lavender, but the new garden design will incorporate much more next year.

The main problems that people experience with lavender are either due to being planted in the wrong place, or they have been left unpruned and have gone all leggy. Only ever plant lavender in full sun. I really wouldn’t bother anywhere else and they need to be in free-draining soil. They hate sitting in soggy soil. Remember these are Mediterranean plants, they love heat and dry conditions.

I water new plants until established and then, unless there is a very prolonged drought, I never water them again. I always prune the classic English varieties of Lavender, such as Hidcote and Munstead in early August straight after flowering. This year, I’m late, but it’s still ok as long as you do it now. Get your secateurs or buy that pruner! The key is to cut about 2cm above old wood. In the video you can see clearly where the old wood and fresh green growth is. You want to create a nice bushy mound that will grow a little more once pruned, so they give you silver-green winter interest. For some later flowering varieties like Lavender Grosso Intermedia, I leave pruning till September to give a little more time for the bees to feast.

Chat

On another note, even though our chat channel already exists within the Substack app, we don’t seem to use it much and that’s probably my fault. There’s a lot of engagement within post comments and Notes and you’re all quite a chatty bunch, so I’m thinking of re-launching the chat too. It’s like a private WhatsApp group for all paid subscribers and any of you can start a thread there and ask a question, make new friends or just show us your garden, or home with photos and videos. I’ll be there too. I may start a conversation about alliums, or bathroom design, for example, and then anyone can join in. It works very well for

Jo Thompson

and also for

Farrah @Substack

- they both have very lively and friendly chat forums. It could be a great place to ask questions and get real answers rather than generic google solutions, much more personal too! Is this something you’d be interested in?

Ok, till Sunday, have a fab week. Cheers!

Go on, leave a heart ♥️, a restack (that’s the recycle symbol below) and/or a comment. It’s so easy to do and makes a huge difference. Thank you!