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hi everybody and welcome to garden style
well today I thought it would be a
really good idea to clear up some
mysteries regarding lavender and
actually clearing up a few minutes
mysteries as to what the differences are
in lavender so the three primary kinds
I'm going to talk about today are gonna
be your English lavender French lavender
and your Spanish lavender who knew there
were so many and there are actually a
lot more than that but I'm gonna stay
with the basics and what you guys are
most likely gonna find in your local
nurseries so to start with we have
English lavender and I'm gonna pull the
plants out here so you can see you can
see me past the jungle of flowers here
this is your English lavender and you'll
notice that the stems here are kind of
long and skinny and they have the
skinnier flower racks up here at the top
in fact there's a couple here that are
getting ready to open where you actually
see the flowers so with the English
lavenders they are actually the hardest
of all the lavenders meaning most of
these are bred in England and the kind
of environment that they have in England
is actually very similar to what we have
here in the northwest it can be very wet
and cold during the winter and your
English lavenders are actually the
hardiest
and are able to handle more of the cold
than your French or your Spanish
lavenders so to kind of show you the
difference between the two I have a
French lavender here on the side and
you'll notice that the flower Brax are a
lot thicker and a lot woolly earth and
then you've also got your Spanish
lavender a small table here not
including everything on here is your
French and here is your Spanish and I'm
gonna flick a little picture in the
corner there but you'll see that your
Spanish lavenders have a much showy or
bracht up here on the top that's
actually what they call them a flower
bright or wings in some cases but you'll
notice that these are a little bit
longer so your Spanish lavenders as well
as your French have a tendency to be a
little show error and they also bloom
longer than your English lavenders so to
get back to the English lavenders these
are considered the most potent is
far as making perfumes so sachets that
sort of thing and you can probably go to
YouTube and just punch in how to harvest
lavender and there's be a bazillion
videos they'll come up and show you how
to do that rather than me trying to
cover it here in my video I'm just more
concerned on seeing to it that you folks
know the differences in lavenders which
one would be best suited for your
particular area or a location and which
one will actually fulfill what it is you
are wanting to grow lavender for so for
those of you who want to grow the
lavender for the smell the scent English
lavenders are definitely the best way to
go however with English lavenders you
want to be able to harvest them before
you actually start seeing the flowers
appearing on the Brax right here as soon
as you see them starting to open that's
kind of your clue that you need to start
cutting it so that you can get it at its
most potent stage and keep in mind that
lavender is an herb so you can dry
lavender is very similar to the way you
would dry herbs by flipping them upside
down but a whole lot of videos that can
give you the details on that so if you
want to go and trim the lavenders to for
harvest or just to bring inside
definitely of course trim them here
where all your flowers are and that may
be it for your English lavenders
sometimes I've had it come back and
bloom a second time and sometimes not
now the trick to trimming any type of
lavender but English lavender is
especially is you don't want to start
trimming them or cutting them until the
very early spring when you start seeing
the new growth just starting to appear
the big mistake a lot of people make
when it comes to trimming lavender is
they just want to shave it all the way
to the ground which is very bad you
don't want to cut into the woody part of
the plant because with lavenders they
will not come back so woody part once
you cut down that far so you only want
to cut maybe a third of the new growth
off and that can be right after it
flowers to push it out again or in the
very early spring and that's usually the
time I prefer to trim them as I finally
get a lot bushier and I get a much
better result as far as bloom time and
how many blooms I get when I just wait
until
early spring and just give them a real
light trim no need to go into the woody
part now English lavenders definitely
our mark old Hardy they can withstand
the wet a little bit better but all the
lavenders prefer really good drainage so
you kind of want a sandy rocky type soil
that you're putting them into they don't
like a whole lot of compost in fact here
in the northwest it's been known that
we've put ourselves broken oyster shells
around the bottom not only because it
adds more to the soil but it helps to
keep them drier and kind of acts like a
little bit of a mulch at the same time
now French lavenders are beautiful in
and of themselves and the flowers do
tend to be a little woolly err with a
little less of a flower bracket on the
tops of the flowers and what you would
see in a Spanish lavender and French and
Spanish lavenders are both coming from
the Mediterranean and a lot of the
pictures that you see of French lavender
fields going on forever that's actually
English lavender for the most part that
you're seeing grown being it's so potent
for perfumes and stuff for production
purposes English lavender is usually the
chosen one when it comes to perfumes and
that sort of thing now your French and
your Spanish lavenders have a lighter
scent they do smell really good but I
find with a French lavender it has a
tendency to smell a little more towards
the rosemary side as opposed to the
lavender type smell either way it's a
beautiful plant and it has a tendency to
bloom longer than your English lavenders
same with Spanish lavender they're both
from the Mediterranean both prefer dry
hot conditions which is absolutely
perfect for what I'm talking about today
as we're going into June they just love
the dry heat so you don't want to be
watering them constantly let them dry
out a little bit they're used to that
and they actually prefer that coming
from the Mediterranean and I know a lot
of French lavenders and Spanish
lavenders do very well in a limestone
type of soil so a rocky well draining
type of soil is their preference and
you will find that the bees like them
too well this me like I'm not a lavender
flower
so there's zooming in on these right
away you probably saw that in my intro
picture as I was coming into this yeah
anyway so lavender prefers really good
drainage they need full Sun I'm gonna
see if I can find the zone on one of
these so I can tell you just how Hardy
they are the French lavenders aren't
quite as Hardy as the English lavenders
English lavenders can be grown from zone
5 to zone 9 your French and Spanish
lavender is borderline for French it's
usually 8 through 9 and your Spanish
lavender is some of the new varieties
are coming out with can actually be
Hardy down to zone 7 but either way you
want to keep them on the dry side and of
course keep them trimmed there's a
little maintenance involved when it
comes to your Spanish and French
lavenders I maintain mine by cutting off
some of the old blooms on these as they
will continue to keep sending up new
ones throughout the summer
so it gets harder and harder to keep
them trim and keep them neat looking if
you allow some of the dead growth to
stay in there and the real ticket to
these guys is in the spring of course
giving them the full-on trim cutting
about a third of the plant this is the
Spanish lab and they're here so cutting
about a third of it off and don't cut it
all the way to the ground it's kind of
the same rules apply for these guys as
opposed to the English lavenders as well
it smells so good over here it's amazing
so all types of varieties of lavender
out there hopefully this video will help
you kind of figure out what the
difference is between the two and what
your needs are at home if you're looking
for decorative French and Spanish
lavenders for sure because they keep
blooming all summer long if you're
looking for more of the oils and that
sort of thing English lavender can
definitely fit that bill as well now
what I thought I would do is show you
some other differences as far as
lavender is concerned you take the
English lavender up here this particular
lavender as you can see has a real
silvery type of foliage so you can get
different shades of foliage as
when it comes to lavender this one just
happens to be grass Oh lavender and it
is sought after due to the fact that it
blooms all summer long
it's a heavy bloomer and this is also
Hardy to minus 22 minus 10 degrees some
an extremely drought tolerant hearty
type of lavender so if you're looking
for something along those lines
lavendula intermedia grasso is a really
good variety to go with and I find it
does exceptionally well here in the
northwest with our cold wet winters as
well then another variety that I wanted
to show you guys actually comes with
variegated leaves and I was tickled pink
when I found this because these are not
everywhere they're kind of hard to find
and this is called platinum blonde
lavender which I thought was kind of a
cute name for it and this one read the
hardiest on that for you
this guy is Hardy down to minus 10 so
not as Hardy as the grass Oh
but Hardy nonetheless to minus 10 to 0
degrees extremely drought tolerant and
it is also a very long blooming or
repeat blooming type of lavender so
you're getting the green and the yellow
leaves on here and green variegation
they call it bold cream and green
variegation but you also get those
beautiful blue flower spikes the big
ones kind of like Spanish that you see
here okay so real similar and extremely
Hardy so year after year they keep
hybridizing these guys and making them
so that anybody can grow lavender in
their yard and they're just fabulous to
smell so the purposes I use most of
these lavenders for is for landscape
reasons but I did plant a drift of
English lavender just so I could harvest
them and have them four sachets oils
that sort of thing and there's a couple
great recipes for a lavender oil on the
YouTube channels as well so tune into
those it's really easy to make at home
but I like gathering them in bundles and
if you have enough of it you can reuse
out of it
Shea's just have a simple bouquet in a
vase they're very easy to dry and of
course for landscape users they're
fabulous when it comes to hot sunny
areas in your yard they're the perfect
plant for that type of thing okay so I
hope that clears up a little confusion
when it comes to lavenders they're super
easy to grow once you get the knack to
keeping them on the dry side as opposed
to too wet and of course any companion
flowers that you put with lavenders
succulents is one perfect example any
type of plants that you put with them
should take some of the same type of
conditions as lavender so that you're
not getting too much water on these guys
in order to take care of the plants that
are sitting around them all right you
guys so there you go quick rundown on
lavenders in my next video I'm gonna go
over bananas and Khanna's as we start
getting into the summer I want to lean
towards more tropical type plants in my
next video and I thought it would start
with your Canon bulbs as well as banana
trees there's a lot of areas where
bananas are not hardy enough to be grown
year-round this is one of those areas
however I did find a couple of really
neat varieties that are harder than most
however I'll still be putting mine in
containers and pulling them into the
garage during the winter time
and we keep them inside the store during
the wetter I'm just kind of treating
like my house plant so anyway I will get
into that in my next video and hopefully
we start rolling out some more and more
and more of these and of course any
comments or suggestions you can read
them in the description box down below
or you can get ahold of me at garden
style NW comm or my email a garden style
in west at gmail.com hope you guys are
all having a fabulous spring it's about
to become summer I can't believe it
summer solstice is coming up our longest
day of the year and for thus here in
Washington we're so far north we see
about 16 hours of daylight on that day
so it kind of makes sleeping at night a
little rough sometimes this hits light
out by 3:30 in the morning so anyway
enough of me blabbing along
hopefully you've enjoyed this video and
we'll talk to you next week bye for now
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you
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