[Music]
hi I'm Beverly Welch here at the
arborgate in Tomball Texas I'm joined
today by my dear friend an wheeler of
llog housee herbs you know an we get
asked all the time one plant that people
want to grow so often and have
challenges with here on the Gulf Coast
especially are lavenders so I have asked
an to join us today to give us some tips
and tricks on growing these gorgeous
plants well let me recommend first of
all that you choose one that you will
find at the arborgate because they're
locally grown so they'll be the
varieties that we do best with okay
until this just this morning I always
said there are five lavenders that we
should use okay and those would be sweet
lavender provance lavender Spanish
Goodwin Creek gray and in the summer
Fernleaf lavender we have a new one and
the developer of this um lavender has
called it phenomenal it's actually a re
close relative of the provance and the
site you'll notice that the arrangement
of the leaves is very similar this one
will become much grayer the provant will
become much grayer as it matures this
one is several months old and it already
has that silvery appearance but that
will change okay so if you start with a
good variety for our climate first and I
recommend if you're new to Growing
lavender try it in a pot try it in a
container because a lot of the challenge
here is drainage drainage and air
circulation is so important corre and I
think if you try Lavender in a pot um if
you really want to have fun plant three
in three pots and put them in different
places in your garden you can move them
around and find out where they're happy
very shortly you'll find out you will
find out who's happy so in other words
what you want to focus on is drainage
okay and each of these pots and this
chimney flu can all provide excellent gr
drainage one of my favorite things
that's kind of new to me is this um
better than rocks it's called it it it's
a squishy fiberg glassy kind of a
material you can cut one of these into
four parts and use it in four different
pots right it in it really really
facilitates drainage at the bottom
whereas we used to put rocks a layer of
rocks in the bottom and sometime A
Little Rock would get stuck in that
drainage hole exactly and that cannot
happen here right so then you put this
in the bottom you start with that you
add arborgate complete soil complete cuz
you drain again drainage drainage dra
drainage and as you plant and add soil
to your container put some arborgate
blend in there as you go to fertilize
remember that your little plant when you
bring it home is going to be very small
compared to this one and this one this I
planted in early August so so it's still
pretty young and you can see how well
it's it's grown fast now should we prune
these at any stage we should and I'll
tell you why lavender only flowers on
new stems okay we used to the
oldfashioned way of saying that is it
blooms on new wood new wood but the new
the new stems are critical so
traditionally they're in other climates
they're pruned when the roses are PL are
prune right in our climate I find that's
way too late so if you'll go out there
maybe maybe on boxing day maybe between
Christmas and New Year's late December
or very early January anuary and just
take off about this much I would say
you're going to cut right down into the
early part of the green stem well you
know and if you do this in December you
can use these for Christmas gifts too
yes you can you can use them for
Christmas GI you can throw them on the
fire anything to get that Aroma into
your house perfect so once you do that
you can see that's going to make a bushy
plant and the first thing in the spring
it will it will begin putting buds out
very early spring now your one last tip
your one secret to success with lavender
is in this bucket right here yes it is
this is a lowcost bucket full of lowcost
rocks and what what this does is to help
you recreate that
Mediterranean Hillside where you would
find the great great great grandmother
of this lavender grow
and you just put a a layer no doesn't
have to be any deeper than an inch cover
that soil if you plant it in the ground
do the same thing in a circle around the
plant that takes the overhead rain like
um if a sprinkler happens to hit it try
to move your sprinklers if you want to
grow lavender don't do that but if it if
it's a spring rain or winter rain this
helps to drain that water away from the
very vulnerable
underside of this shrub and reflects the
heat again to help keep it dry reflects
the heat plus it's a great look it is a
great look it looks like it was made to
be there it does this is a Mediterranean
plant in a stone planter with rock mulch
perfect perfect what could be nicer
thank you so much Ann and we love the
lavenders and thanks for the great tips
on growing them good luck with them