Uses for luxurious lavender
MULTIPURPOSE: GARDEN PLANT AND HEALING HERB WITH ATTRACTIVE FLOWERS AND AROMA
Ways to use it include as a hedge, in drifts, against a wall, lining a pathway.
Spring-flowering lavender is starting to make its presence felt, very close to home. In my neighbour’s pavement garden, tall-growing Margaret Roberts’ lavender softens a redbrick wall, with lower and showier Stoechas lavender as a border. It is a breathtaking sight!
Few plants match lavender for fragrance, and although it’s a healing and tonic herb, it is more likely to be found in the flower garden than among vegetables and herbs. It’s grown with roses, clipped into hedges, lines pathways, fills containers and acts as a silvery-grey foliage plant in the garden.
As a landscape plant, its main assets are drought tolerance, the variety and colour of its flowers and that it grows well in partial shade, even though everyone regards it as a full-sun plant.
Bandera is another stoechas with great flower power. It is bred to be dense and compact and does not need to be pinched to become bushy. It produces a second flush of flowers and doesn’t need to be dead-headed as the flowers fall off cleanly when they are over.