How to Prune Your Lavender Plants – Best Practice

How to Make Your Lavender Last for Ten Years-Prune Twice A Year

In late winter, (January and February) pruning lavender is an optimistic and happy task.  If you are in on the secret this is when lavender gets the biggest cut.  (See video below for the how to.) For decades people were taught to prune only in late winter.  This outdated practice does not give you a long lasting plant.

In the fall no one wants to prune their blooming (still colorful if faded) lavender plants.  (NOOOOO! I don’t want to prune them, they are soooo pretty right now!)  I agree gentle gardener, but please let me persuade you to try this new technique and prune them the second time.

Trimming lavender back by half (late summer/early fall) and trim again in late winter/early spring.  This gets you ten years instead of  three in  your garden! Learning how to do this in a garden coaching appointment is a confidence builder. Once you learn how, you can have fabulous low care lavender the rest of your gardening life.

Another bonus to pruning twice; lavender can look tidy for winter if we prune them correctly in the fall.  How to properly prune lavender. The video was created by our own Stonegate Lavender grower from West Linn (who sadly closed up shop in 2015). I agree with her technique and her video is still live, teaching people the right technique.

Don’t worry, you don’t have to use a lavender saw, you can use your trusty Felco pruners or other clippers – the lavender saw Sarah is using is pretty cool and is old school as in 1500’s.

Lavender is an excellent plant for feeding our native bees and endangered bumble bees.  Not any old plant will do for natural bees. Contact me for a landscape design that includes easy care colorful plants that are good for our pollinators.