Help needed

[SwishFish]

I always used to admire my neighbour’s plants and never had much luck with my own. She encouraged me to give it a go but it never went well so she’d let me help with hers.

She passed away recently and left me her plants. Unfortunately they took a while finding their way to me and I’m struggling to keep some of them healthy. I loaned a couple of gardening books from the library and have googled what to do but there are 2 in particular I’m really worried about.

I would really appreciate some advice on how to help them. The first is (or was) a beautiful rose bush that she had for years and the second is a lavender. They’re in their original pots. I’ve (hopefully) attached pictures.

I’m watering them and have given the rose crushed eggshells (her tip). I think I might need to cut some of it away but don’t want to get it wrong.

I wish I’d written down everything she told me over the years.

The lavender

Don't water the lavender much! It's a Mediterranean plant & loves lots of sun & heat, so south facing if you can. It also prefers poor sandy gritty soil that doesn't hold water.
However, the middle of the lavender bush always look like that - as long as the outer spikes/leaves are a good green silver colour & not drooping it'll be fine.
The rose looks ok - some new growth at the base.

Lavender can be pruned back to above new growth to encourage it, but it won't grow back from a woody stem. Realistically lavenders only last for a few years so if it doesn't last long it won't necessarily be your fault. Make sure it's very well drained, and in the sunshine, but it will still need watering if it doesn't rain.

Roses are not my thing, but it looks like you have some dead wood, and the big green shoot may be a sucker from the root stock. If the growth is from above the graft you can prune away the sucker and all will be well. If it's from below the graft and everything above the graft is dead you may still have a nice rose but it won't necessarily look like the original one! Someone with proper rose knowledge will be able to give you (and possibly me) some better advice.

@WiseUpJanetWeiss has given good advice.

Usually a rose sucker has different leaves from the grafted rose, smaller leaflets and more of them. I think, but am not sure, that that isn’t a sucker. I’d wait a bit longer and see what the leaves are like. You can prune off the dead wood.

Lavenders aren’t inherently short lived. I still have the bushes that were here when we moved in 30 years ago.

If you have the space, both will be easier to look after if you plant them in the ground

Thank you all.

How can I tell the dead wood from the branches with potential?

We’ll be moving house after Christmas so I’ll wait until then to plant them and try my best to keep them going in the meantime.

A close up of the branches

The two at the back are dead, dark brown, no leaves. The two on the right are alive and green. The one on the left may be alive. You could remove a sliver or bark and see if there’s a layer of green between bark and wood, which would show it was alive,as would leaves further up, out of picture.

have you removed that low down leafy shoot? I wasn’t convinced that was a sucker, leaf shape wrong

Thank you @MereDintofPandiculation that’s really helpful. I’m so nervous to chop away but this gives me some confidence.

I haven’t removed anything yet, the leafy shoot is still there next to the bigger green one.