Help needed with lavender!

[jennyfarr]

I'm new to the forum.
I have a lavender bush in my garden which I've been cutting back each autumn since I moved here 4 years ago and each summer it has grown tremendously. It seems I've done it some good by cutting it back, but it's now so big that it's starting to look too big for its spot in the garden!
Help, please!

[Paul Narramore]

Hello Jenny and welcome. What to do? How about taking some cuttings and once they've taken, dig up the mother plant and either give it away, or cut it up and compost it. If you've been pruning every year and it's now too big, perhaps you havent pruned it hard enough? They need to be pruned down to the lowest leaves but not into the old wood. I am growing a circular lavender hedge, about 10ft in diameter, all grown from lavender cuttings taken from one 'mother' plant.

[jennyfarr]

Hello Jenny and welcome. What to do? How about taking some cuttings and once they've taken, dig up the mother plant and either give it away, or cut it up and compost it. If you've been pruning every year and it's now too big, perhaps you havent pruned it hard enough? They need to be pruned down to the lowest leaves but not into the old wood. I am growing a circular lavender hedge, about 10ft in diameter, all grown from lavender cuttings taken from one 'mother' plant.

Thanks, Paul. I think I am cutting it back to where it should be, but there is a lot of old, dead looking wood low down. I might give it one more year and see what it looks like next spring and summer. I must say, I was delighted to find that we had a lavender bush in the garden when we moved in, but it was certainly a lot smaller then! If I decide to dig it out eventually, how do I take cuttings? Thanks again.

[Paul Narramore]

Jenny

It's a bit late to take cuttings - this should normally be done in August - but I'd have a go anyway as you've nothing to lose. Pull off some pices about 4" long from the main stems, and with a 'heal'. With a sharp knife cut off just the thin tip of the heal as this will just rot, take half-a-dozen of these cuttings, remove all the lower leaves and place around the edge of a 4" pot containing gritty compost. Place in a cool greenhouse/porch/window sill. I can never remember whether to cover in a polythene bag or not. Next spring you should have a nice collection of tiny plants.

Old bushes should be pruned in April.

[jennyfarr]

Jenny

Old bushes should be pruned in April.

I've seen conflicting advice on the internet about pruning in Spring - one site said NEVER prune then, others said to cut back after flowering and then prune in Spring.
There is a lot of dead looking wood in the lower part of the bush, and it is fairly old, I think, so I'll take your advice. Thanks!

[Paul Narramore]

The thing about gardening Jenny is that most of us take advice from experts but even they cannot agree a lot of the time. Generally all shrubs are pruned after flowering and if they are pruned at the wrong time, all that happens is that there'll be no flowers for a year. Sometimes circumstances dictate that today is the best/most convenient time to prune a shrub. Today, in fact, I was asked to do something with an out of control Firethorn and Honeysuckle which was spreading over a path and pulling a rickety trellis fence down. I'm sure both will recover and they'll probably give a good display of flowers next year.

To see experts disagreeing, watch 'X Factor' ;-)

[Neil Bromhall]

Hi Paul,
I agree with you. Pruning is not a science but there are some handy hints as to when and how to prune. Some plants for example don't like being pruned too hard in to old wood whilst others benefit when the old wood is removed.
In the wild plants are nibbled by herbivores and the plants have adapted to cope with this and will send out healthy new growth.
When I first started making the CD I thought I'd get some expert Authors to advise what we should do. It was a surprise when one of the Authors said that to prune roses you need to keep the rose open to allow air to flow whereas David Austin Roses suggested using sheers to trim the rose in to shape.
Very different techniques but both seem to work fine.
What I'm more interested in is what not to do, like what shouldn't I prune and why. For example don't prune vines when the sap is rising because the plant will bleed. If you prune when the plant is dormant then the sap won't weep. 'Pruning / removing' spent flowers encourages more flowers. This is because the plant has no need to make new flowers if it's starting to put it's energy in to seed production, stop the seed production and the plant knows that it needs to produce more flowers to be fertilised - hey presto I now know why I need to dead-head my plants. It's simple advice like this that people understand and can get a feel of when and how to do it PLUS gaining personal experience is best of all with guidance from the informed.

[Paul Narramore]

Yes Neil, I've heard experts say that pruning roses using a hedge cutter does no harm and even encourages better flowering, but I could never bring myself to treat a shrub in such a way.

Off the point, but the old rose bush had to dig/chop up from a ladies garden recently, and I kept back about ten pieces, I potted these up and many have tiny shoots on them. Hopefully they are Rosa 'Canary Bird' but I'm sure there must be quite a few tiny leaved roses out there. I'm really curious as to what the blooms will look like. Pale yellow and I've guessed right!