Gardening expert Monty Don has highlighted a key task for August that can help prevent lavender from becoming leggy and woody. Pruning lavender annually, ideally when the flowers start to fade, is essential for maintaining a healthy plant that can thrive for up to 10 years.
Why prune lavender in August?
According to Monty Don, August is the perfect time to give lavender a well-deserved trim. By doing this, gardeners can prepare their plants for the colder months ahead, ensuring they survive the winter while still blooming brightly. The best time to prune is when the flowers begin to fade, which can happen anytime between midsummer and the end of August. Gardeners should not wait for the flowers to turn brown or for seed heads to form.
Monty Don advises cutting the lavender back to a good compact shape, leaving enough new shoots on each stem. He notes that lavender often will not regrow from bare wood, so leaving new shoots is crucial. He says: "These new shoots will grow fast and provide an attractive and healthy cover to protect the plant in winter and provide the basis of next year's display."
Benefits of regular pruning
If pruned annually, a strong lavender plant can grow and thrive for well up to 10 years, but only if tended to with regular pruning. Without this ritual, the plant's lifespan could be reduced, with fewer flowers coming through year on year.
Deadheading dahlias
Monty Don also recommends deadheading dahlias in August. Dahlias will continue to produce new flowers into the autumn, but only if they are deadheaded regularly. He suggests that the simplest way to tell the difference between a spent flower and an emerging bud is by its shape: a bud is rounded, whereas a spent flower is pointed and cone-shaped. He explained: "Always cut back to the next side shoot - even if it means taking a long stem - as this will stimulate new flowers and avoid ugly spikes of stem."
According to the gardening expert, nothing else is so effective in allowing summer flowers to last for as long as possible as deadheading often.
