What I Learned About Lavender

Lavender is hard as hell to grow in the desert. I just cut to the chase! I purchased one from Home Depot of unknown origin then purchased a Provence species from an Etsy seller that was supposed to do well here. I was warned! “Lavender doesn’t transplant well.” Those words from the seller are still echoing in my brain for weeks as I’m feeling like a rock star! Not only is my lavender alive after a few weeks, its thriving!!! Lavender is thinking…hold my beer.

Here’s the deal. Lavender doesn’t like much water. That’s a little problem here in the Sonoran when we are getting torched by the hottest summer on record (same problem with white sage but we’ll tackle that demon later)! OK…it’s 115 degrees PLUS each day so I water the plants twice a day. I soak em in the morning and give them a nice soak at night. That way they can re-hydrate and recover from that ass-whooping they got all day, I can’t sugar coat this. The sun here is NO joke. If I don’t get out there to water my plants by 1pm some of the more sensitive species will already be DEAD. If I miss a full day, I can kiss my garden goodbye. This is a commitment! Knowing all of this…lavender still gave me attitude about too much water. Within a month I noticed I had a little problem. Leaves started dying off. I didn’t think much of it, it had just bloomed!!! I cut off the dead leaves and moved on. Within a week I had dead sections on two different lavender plants. At this point I began to investigate. It was root-rot. That beautiful plant photographed above was DYING just like that! So I did what the experts say to do. I moved the plants, cut off the dead roots, cleaned them and tried to adjust the watering schedule. At this point its mid August and we are still at 112 on a daily basis, no monsoon (that’s what we desert folk call a rain storm) in sight.

Within a week of moving the lavender, they were both dead. Now I have a little dilemma, lavender is an essential herb. Do I buy it from suppliers or try this again? Well, I’m going to try this again. What I’ve learned about all of the herbs I’ve grown is the ones I’ve purchased locally have done better than shipped herbs. Even though my locally purchased lavender also perished, when its time to try this again I’ll be buying all of them from a local nursery. The watering is going to be tricky when its hot. Now, one thing I’ve done to get around that with other herbs it to put them on the patio as opposed to being in the garden. That could be the case with lavender. Next batch will be potted on the patio to allow for cover from the harsh sun to enable less frequent watering. Hope this helps you.

My growing zone is 9b