August is a pivotal time for anyone growing lavender in their garden. The flower is coming to the end of its blooming season, and to ensure you get a headstart on next year’s flowers, August is the time to get ahead on your flower maintenance.
Adam Kirtland, a gardening expert and brains behind View from the Potting Bench on TikTok, revealed that August is the time to carry out a very important job: pruning. A prune done in August will help prevent the plant from becoming leggy and woody.
Why pruning matters
A trim will help keep the plant neat and aesthetically pleasing, and will encourage the fresh growth to thrive next year. Not pruning correctly or at the right time can leave the lavender leggy and woody, and without flowers in the future.
You may have even noticed that plenty of lavender foliage on the top is still thick, but with faded stems that are falling down, so you’ll want to give it a little bit of a tidy.
How to prune lavender in August
In a recent video, Adam said: “Whenever yours have finished flowering then it’s time to cut back, but there’s an important step.”
When pruning lavender, it is essential to distinguish between old and new wood. The old wood will appear brown, displaying almost white foliage, while the new growth will be a vibrant green.
Adam instructed that gardeners should “only cut back” into “young green growth”, completely avoiding woody stems. Cutting into the woody stems will stop the lavender growing back in the future.
Gardeners can prune as hard as they like, but are urged to leave some new growth beneath the cutting point, this will help encourage the plant to grow back next year. Carefully look for new buds growing above old wood. Once you’ve found some new shoots, you want to cut an inch or so above it, where the spent leaves finish.
Planting and aftercare
When it comes to planting lavender correctly, make sure it's placed in an area with plenty of sun and use free-draining soil. Usually, the occasional water and rain can help keep the lavender hydrated.
To make sure your lavender has got all of the nutrients it needs, it’s recommended that gardeners use a healthy compost on top of the soil.
Gardeners’ World warned: "Lavender can become very leggy, bearing few flowers. The reason for this is lack of, or poor, pruning. Many gardeners just deadhead hardy types, which also leads to leggy plants and not many flowers. Looked after in this way, the plant will be very short-lived."
It’s also not long now until you can completely prune your lavender. Once flowering has finished, you can give the lavender a proper prune. However, be careful you don’t cut too far down the stem. This will run the risk of the lavender not growing back at all.
