Is all my lavender dead?

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All my French lavender looks like this....
No sign of life inside the plants and the stems are very woody. I can break a twig and inside it's not green but doesn't break that easily.
Do I need to bin it all??

I’ve had French lavender in pots (I only have pots) several times. Mine always dies over winter but I’m resigned to it now, and just buy a new one when I want one.
It’s just too cold & wet where I am (Lancashire).

Surely with all the years of experience that nurseries have had with lavender, you would think that they would have trained a hardier variety to grow in the Uk/ Northern European climates. I sometimes feel like there is no point in buying / tending to my lavender as it will give up just after one extended winter. My rosemary can also be a bit hit and miss too.

I put in 6 English lavender (Munstead) a few weeks ago. Five are doing pretty well, one looks about 80% dead, with new growth on just two stems.

They've all gone in the same soil (chalky and free draining), all are in full sun and all were planted on the same afternoon. Needless to say, the one that's doing badly is the one in the most prominent position, just a few inches from a path.

There's just no rhyme or reason to the bloody things, is there?

I finally had success with lavender in a massive planter but it wasn't great last year. I was gutted to discover it has something of a shelf life and doesn't last forever so now needs replacing.

I cut my English lavender back in the early spring when I can see the new leaves growing. I cut it pretty much right back so it's a small compact round. I leave it until then so any birds etc can eat the seeds if they want, or use it for nesting. It's always grown really well. I have purple and a white variety.

French lavender grows fast and is cheaper to produce, that's why they sell so much of it.

Just treat it as an annual, and think of it as a bonus if it survives.

Putting my cynic's head on for a moment...

If everything bought from garden centres was as tough as old boots and lived for years, then we wouldn't need to go back and buy more, would we? It pays for them to sell a lot of plants that aren't particularly hardy. If you get my drift.

Buy your annual French lavenders in Lidl this Thursday

My French lavender in the border is looking very dead but the one in a pot by the south facing wall of our house survived.
I’m in a very soggy bit of NW

I'm a bit late with this but being a new gardener I didn't know how to 'cut back'. So off I went with my garden scissors and chopped my entire plant off. I literally just left a tiny bit of stalk showing at ground level. I thereafter panicked and thought oh God what have I done!!

However I'm happy to say in the last week or two my lavender has all grown fresh healthy growth with no signs of damage. One plant I just cut parts of it off to see if there'd be a difference and the one totally cut back is growing much better and healthier albeit much smaller.

@Notsogreenthumb My neighbour used to prune with something akin to your philosophy. He had a beautiful hedge of lavender around two side of a patio and every year he'd prune it back really hard. Most year he was OK, but every 10 years or so the whole lot would just die off, and he'd just accept a year without flower as all the shed seeds produced seedlings and the hedge re-grew.