Dead lavender

[SouthWestmom]

We've had it each year for about ten years and it's been amazing. However this year it's just a dead wreck. How easy to take it all up? There's loads

I have the same problem. Our front garden is edged with lavender plants, and they appear to be dead as a door nail. They've only been in for 4 years. I'm also wondering if I overpruned this time.

If you scratch into the wood lower down, see if there is green underneath the bark. If there is, it’s still alive.

I hope there’s not some lavender virus going around!

If there’s any live plants left, it’s pretty easy to strike cuttings from to grow some new plants to replace.

@Eireni, can you tell me
How to strike a cutting from the small amount of new growth my lavender bush has?

Funny I was looking at my lavender this morning and doing really well, but it's less than 10 years since we planted them. We don't do anything really either, I regularly cut it out to use it for baths or cooking, never pruned.

English and Dutch lavender flower later - the latter can be flowering into September. Whereas French starts around now.

It also depends how much sun (and water) they had over the winter, if they've only just started to wake up and grow now they won't be ready to flower yet.

I usually expect my English lavender to flower June or July after the most impressive French blooms in April/May and then the Dutch follow in August.

If you can see it starting to put on growth then give it a chance. Maybe give it a little feed of potash and make sure it's not dried out.

The pp who mentioned acidic soil - French lavender prefers slightly acidic soil.

There's info here on pruning lavender with pictures:

downderry-nursery.co.uk/lavender-care/

Yep that looks pretty dead. Mine has lots of dead looking lower branches but also lots of green shoots. It takes over the path by midsummer though so will have to take it out later this year.
Good idea with the cuttings. I think you just pick off a top shoot (about 10cm) and pop in pot of compost. Though please correct me if anyone knows anymore. Same with Rosemary. When would I plant the cuttings out into the garden?

Sadly they don't last for ever, I think you've done really well if you've had ten years out of yours. They eventually go really woody and horrid.

I’ll let Monty do the teaching on how to do cuttings

www.gardenersworld.com/how-to/grow-plants/how-to-take-lavender-cuttings/

I generally just chop off ends of things and bung them in a pot and see what happens!

You can use rooting powders, either artificial rooting hormone you can buy in powder form, or various natural things - cinnamon powder is a natural antibacterial/antifungal agent, honey again antiseptic with a bit of energy, giving them a drink of dilute soluble aspirin helps apparently not tried that one yet.

We took all of ours up about 6 years ago. This year it seems to have re-emerged!

A couple of years ago I rented a cottage in the middle of a lavender field in France, thanks to our typical impeccable timing we arrived to find the farmer digging it all up :P Apparently they do it every 10 years, so I'd guess that's a reasonable lifespan.

Oh that's interesting abelino I am going to dig it up when I can get a replacement because otherwise the stones fall out