By Tom Wajda
Willow Pond Farm Herbs & Everlastings

Like most people, our experience with lavender has largely been with those two old standbys, Munstead and Hidcote.

Last year, in anticipation of lavender being the 1999 Herb of the Year, we planted a lavender demonstration garden. The results are in and we think they’re both interesting and useful.

By way of background, our lavender garden gets a little morning shade, but is in the sun all day after 9 a.m. The soil is well- drained and sandy with a fair number of small rocks. We are in zone 6 and had low temperatures around zero last winter. After Christmas we cut up the tree and covered the plants with the boughs until early March.

One last point — we have been suffering from a considerable drought since the lavenders were planted. For the July 1998-June 1999 year, we should have had a little more than 40 inches of rain. We actually got about 30 inches, a 25 percent deficit. We watered the young plants occasionally in 1998, but did not water them this year.

Lady Lavender: Lady was awarded the All-American Flower Award several years ago, but this was the first time we had grown it. It was the first of the species to bloom (first week of June) and was a delight. The flowers were uniformly good sized with a fairly deep purple color. The blossoms maintained a nice appearance for two weeks (as did all of the others). The plant was about 12 inches high and also 12 inches wide.

Hidcote: Hidcote was the next to bloom at the beginning of the second week of June. It was about the same size as Lady; its blooms were fairly small and tight, but with a deep purple color. We have about 50 Hidcotes planted in the field and they have proved to be very hardy over four winters. Hidcote dries very well in bunches, but the stems are too short and stiff for lavender wands.

Munstead: Our Munstead grew a couple of inches taller and wider than the Hidcote and bloomed about a week later. The blossoms were bigger than the Hidcote, but not as tight, nor as deeply colored. Nonetheless, like the Hidcote it is a good lavender for drying in bunches.

Sawyers: The Sawyers lavender was a very pleasant surprise and we really fell in love with it. Its leaves are definitely gray; not gray-green, but gray; its flowers had excellent color and were on stems nearly a foot long. Great for drying but, again, somewhat too stiff to make into wands. It bloomed on June 11.

Blue Cushion: This is not supposed to be a very big plant and it was definitely the runt of the litter in our trial. It grew to about six inches tall and is six inches in diameter. It bloomed late in the second week of June with a limited number of blossoms on short (3-4 inch) stalks. Blue Cushion has a place at the edge of your garden, but don’t count on it as a cutting plant.

Seal, Seal of Oaks, Spike, and Fat Spike (aka Grosso): I am not a taxonomist, but I still wouldn’t want to live on the differences between these four varieties; they all look pretty much the same to me. This is not to say that I dislike them. On the contrary, they are great plants. All grew nicely mounded about 15 inches in diameter. Then they produced flowers on stems 15-18 inches long. These proved to be great for making lavender wands.

Rosea and Jean Davis: These are both pink lavenders, although I find them to be more white than pink. As in the case of the Seals, Spikes, etc., I have a hard time seeing any difference between them. We have had several around for three or four winters and they are nicely hardy here. Both bloomed in mid-June and were similar to the Munstead in size. They have a good lavender aroma, but their color does not hold up well during drying — they turn brown.

Dutch Lavender: These looked great in early and mid-June, but have been somewhat of a disappointment since they started blooming at the end of the month. Early on, the plants had (and still have) a very nice looking gray color with the main plant area about 14 inches in diameter. However, the flowers, on 16-18 inch stems, are quite disappointing. Not much color or size. They are still blooming in the third week of July. If you grow them, do so for the gray foliage rather than the blossom. (Note: Some customers say they have trouble overwintering them in zone 6.)

French, Fringed, Spanish, and Otto Quast: These are easily confused (and easily confusing) varieties of L. stoechas, L. multifida, and L. dentata. They are all tender and will not tolerate more than a little frost. However, they make great pot plants and seem to bloom almost year ’round. Be sure to keep them pruned back and deadhead the spent flowers. They’ll reward you in February with nice blooms and fragrance.