A few months ago I was trying to take some photos of my lavender plants.
The sun had disappeared from the area where the lavender was and in my frustration at trying to get a good shot in the low light, I snipped off an end piece to take out into the sunshine to photograph.
I had always thought that lavender looked a lot like rosemary, but close up I was thinking how much lavender leaves resembled those of ferns.
Happy with my photographs, and ready no doubt to inflict upon you a post about how glorious lavender smells, I turned back to look at the plants and was struck by how unhealthy they looked.
I had been very proud of them, they were once very beautiful, but they were past their prime and had become woody and just looked messy.
And so I just pulled them all out, leaving me with no lavender.
Sometimes I don't think things through.
Luckily I know a thing or two about retrospective restoration.
A few months before this lavender story, I had seen an episode of Gardening Australia where this lovely lady had the most fabulous grounds, and the most fabulous planting method.
She would just chop bits of plants off, spear a hole in the ground with her shovel and plant them half to three quarters of the way up the stem. No stripping, no shooting in water, just chop, hole, and plonk. The Gardening Australia dude was amazed. I was amazed. This woman was my new gardening hero.
This method of course appealed to me immensely, and off I cut 6 or 7 more stems of my poor yanked out lavender, poked some holes in the garden and buried them, about halfway up their stems.
Here they are, three months in.
Growing up :)
10 comments:
I love the lavender photos! They are very good. And it is good thing to know how to propagate them. I would never think to try to do it the easiest way possible!
Your lavender looks completely different to mine! My Lavender has long spiky leaves like Rosemary. Glad your cuttings "took". Plants are so resilient, aren't they? Just imagine what it would be like if when a human had a limb amputated you could plant it and grow another person!!!
Whose toes are those...?
Love it! I think I'm going to go chop and plonk some lavender right now. Might try it with rosemary too.
I did forget to say that I had to water them A LOT at the beginning. Every day for quite some time. Luckily I had planted them in a small dip in the ground next to the water tank, so I would pour some water into the dip every time I used the tank water.
Mrs Lottie I am wanting to try it with rosemary too, I can't see why it wouldn't work, and I guess we'll find out!
Mark they are Luka's feet. He was holding back some of the grass so I could photograph the lavender. I was trying to make a bit of a connection at the end of the post and the "growing" comment. I may have been a bit too subtle there!
And Vrtlarica Ana, I am also going to try this method with all sorts of plants! I will also try to find the episode on the ABC (television channel) where the woman uses this method.
Ali, I have found lavendar to bounce back if you prune heavily (I only know how to prune heavily). So far I haven't managed to kill anything *by pruning anyway*!
Another way to propogate lavender/ rosemary that has recently been discussed on BLF is to bend a lower branch and shove it into a pot/ soil and put a brick on it - this sounded easy enough for me... athough I like you're idea even better!
Thanks for the handy propagating tip, Ali! I never would have though of just plonking a majority of the plant in the ground like that. I was always told, clean cut, strip and dunk in rooting hormone and away she goes.
I like a little bit of easier around the garden!
I'm a bit of a fan of strip and dunk myself - as I'm a heavy pruner. My favourite garden tool would have to be the long handled pruning shears.
Beautiful shots of the lavender (and toes). I'm interested in the type of lavender it is too - we've only had success with the longer leafed one. None of them seem to like humidity and too much water, so you've done well to strike such lovely specimens.
I've been failing miserably trying to propagate things. I might give this a go. And I didn't realize there were symbolic references in your snaps! I'm going to have to put my intellectual, arty farty analytical eye to them in the future!
I am pretty sure that this is French Lavender, which is actually native to Spain. I think it is considered to be inferior to English Lavender, as in it just smells pretty and we don't use it in cooking.
Veggiegobbler do give it a try, but make sure you keep the soil moist. You can tell when they need a water anyway, this type of lavender droops when it's thirsty.
Donna I love a good prune, but am pretty sure that I do it all wrong. I am going to have to learn however, as I have a beautifully shaped apple tree that I'd like to maintain.
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