ah the countryside of Provence lavender
fields as far as the eye can see the
delicate flower is releasing their sweet
fragrance into the warm summer breeze
except we're not in France and
technically it's still winter but we can
bring a little bit of that daydream into
any garden and lavender is such a useful
herb both medicinal and culinary but
above and beyond that it just smells
awesome and the bees love it I'm working
today in our new French garden and we're
gonna be planting two different types of
lavender lavender dentata and lavender
intermedia Provence I've got my spot
chosen and I'm gonna dig a hole twice as
deep and twice as wide as the pot I'm
fortunate enough to live in a
Mediterranean climate work lavender
grows best however that is not a
prerequisite for success in fact I
planted six Levenger plants a few years
back and all six of them rotted it's
really more about soil quality and not
what you might think
lavender actually thrives on neglect and
what you would traditionally consider
bad soil conditions it likes a warm
sunny location but also requires little
to no water and unamended fast draining
soil the location I'm planting today
hasn't had a lot of improvement lately
in terms of compost or manure and even
though we have quite a bit of sand in
our soil I want to improve the drainage
even more I'm adding coarse sand beneath
where the roots will be and I'm also
going to add it to the backfill if you
live in a wet climate or have a lot of
humidity you really want to improve the
drainage of the soil and you can do that
by adding a lot of sand and gravel both
beneath the plant in the hole and into
the backfill for the dirt around the
roots you can also plant them up up on a
mound so that any rainwater runs off
anything you can do to improve the
drainage the lavenders really
appreciate and we'll pay you back
there's almost you can't have too good a
drainage for lavender these are young
plants and look like they were recently
potted on so there are not a lot of
roots to tease out here because I feel
like we have good enough drainage I'm
gonna plant at the same level that was
growing in the pot and not up on a mound
but again in wet climates or heavy soil
you might want to plant it about two to
three inches higher than ground level
and then mound the soil up to it as I
backfill the soil I'm mixing in some
more sand just to have even drainage
throughout so that's it and remember
literally the drier and more bare in the
soil the better the flowers and the
better the fragrance and if you do live
in a humid climate and have some
problems growing them in the soil even
through all of this you can always grow
them in containers make sure you have
excellent draining potting soil and
actually add some more perlite or gravel
just for good measure I want to thank
you for watching if you enjoyed the
video give us a thumbs up if you learn
something new please consider
subscribing if you have some tips of
your own go ahead and mention them in
the comments that would be great and
I'll see you guys next time
[Music]
you
[Music]