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How and When to Prune Different Types of Lavender

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How and When to Prune Different Types of Lavender

The soothing smell, gorgeous blooms, and tidy habit of lavender make it one of the most prized plants in gardens. While lavender is low-maintenance in terms of water and soil needs, it does need a specific approach in pruning. Especially once it has become a mature, established plant. We all want to keep lavender in our garden for the long run. Therefore, it's important to know how to prune it. This will ensure a prolific crop of flowers and tidy foliage comes back year after year.

How and when to prune lavender varies depending on the type of lavender you’re growing. Here are tips for pruning the three most common types of lavender. Follow the advice and you're sure to have healthy, beautiful lavender growing in your garden every year. 

How and When to Prune English Lavender (Lavandula angustifolia)

This is the classic English lavender is beloved for its memorable fragrance. Also for it's silvery foliage and stems that add texture to a border. It’s one of the hardier and most commonly grown lavenders with blooms that come on strong in early summer. (And, it makes a great short hedge!)

When and how to prune:

Pictured left: Munstead Lavender, Zones 5 – 9

How and When to Prune English Hybrids (Lavandula x intermedia)

The glam, later flowering lavender (Lavandula x intermedia) has long flowering stems. These are topped by slender tapering flower heads with stems that splay outwards from a rounded mound of foliage. Use them make as the centerpiece of a border or to highlight corners and edges of beds. Or, where you can enjoy the movement with every breeze.

When and how to prune:

Pictured left: Riverina Thomas French Lavender Zones 5 – 9

How and When to Prune Non-English Lavender (French, Spanish, Wooly, etc.)

These 'tufted lavenders' have full, thick flower spikes. They flower much earlier, in late spring in warmer zones and early summer in colder zones. Then often bloom right into fall. Such a diverse collection of lavenders with plenty of variation in fragrance, size, color, texture, and flower heads. This makes them fun to play with in the garden.

When and how to prune:

Pictured left: Javelin Forte™ Deep Rose Spanish Lavender Zones 7 – 9

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How to Prune Lavender Plants in Every Season

The best ways to trim back your plants, whether they're young or woody

By

Jonathan Landsman

Jonathan Landsman

Jonathan Landsman is a professional horticulturist and former city planner for the NYC Department of Parks & Recreation.

Learn more about The Spruce's Editorial Process

Updated on 08/27/22

Reviewed by

Barbara Gillette

Reviewed by Barbara Gillette

Barbara Gillette is a master gardener, herbalist, beekeeper, and journalist. She has 30 years of experience propagating and growing fruits, vegetables, herbs, and ornamentals.

Learn more about The Spruce's Review Board

The Spruce / Phoebe Cheong 

In This Article

Project Overview

Lavender is regarded as a semi-shrub or subshrub—a plant that looks like a perennial because most of its growth is soft and green but with older base stems that turn woody. So-called "woody lavender" refers to the a plant with older, mature stems.

A hardy plant for dry spots and one of the longest-blooming semi-shrubs around, lavender (Lavandula) would earn a place in most sunny gardens even if it didn’t have such a heavenly scent. There’s more good news: Lavender is easy to prune, and when you do it you’ll be covered for the rest of the day in those aromatic oils. When it's time to prune your lavender, tailor the process to the age and variety of the plant.

When to Prune Lavender

An easy, effective lavender pruning schedule is to prune in the springtime and again after flowering. A slightly more detailed schedule involves three rounds of pruning: pinching off fresh young tips as they are just developing; cutting back stems by about one-third their length after flowering is complete; and removing complete stems late in the season if they have grown old and woody.

Of the three, the most important time to prune lavender is after flowering is complete, but this plant is forgiving. All lavenders bloom on the stems that grew in the current year. This means pruning can be done in early or mid-spring without sacrificing the current year’s flowers.

Pruning in spring can delay flowering—which might be your preference—and it's a good time to take down dead portions and shorten the growth to the buds. Pruning in late summer or early fall before the first frost encourages good air circulation, which guards against rot. So if you have the time, pruning twice a year can be helpful for your plant.

There's little reason to deadhead the individual small flowers on a lavender plant—cutting back entire stems is a more effective practice.

Before Getting Started

Deep at the center of the mounded semi-shrub, your lavender plant is trying to turn to wood. One goal of pruning lavender is to slow down that transformation for several reasons:

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Watch Now: How to Prune Lavender Plants

Equipment / Tools

Materials

The Spruce / Jayme Burrows

  1. Prune Young Lavender Plants

    Start pruning lavender plants while they're still young. Begin by pinching off tips of new growth so that a young plant can respond with dense branching that helps form a good shape and a lot of blooming growth to work with as it matures. Waiting to prune will cause the plant to form woody growth that can't be shaped as nicely.

    The Spruce / Jayme Burrows

  2. Pruning Established Lavender Plants

    Heavily prune established lavender, cutting back all stems by at least a third after the plant is finished flowering for the season (the exact time for this can vary depending on the lavender variety and your local climate). Lavender in full sun can be expected to grow vigorously each year, so take this opportunity to reform your plants into the green mounds that are lavender’s signature shape.

    Tip

    You can use hand pruners or pruning shears. Shears are less precise than hand pruners, but they save time and may be necessary when you are creating or maintaining a lavender hedge.

    The Spruce / Jayme Burrows

  3. Pruning Lavender That Is Woody

    Continue to heavily prune old plants, but don’t cut down to leafless wood. You can’t rejuvenate plants by cutting into old wood, but you can try to rejuvenate them by pruning to points just above the wood. A good rule of thumb is to count to the third node (a raised bump from which leaves grow) above the woody part and then cut just above it. If you are lucky, all three nodes, as well as some hidden nodes buried in the wood, will wake up and grow for you.

    The Spruce / Jayme Burrows

  4. Guidelines for Specific Varieties

    Identifying your lavender variety and tailoring pruning to that type will help you get more return for your efforts. There are three common types of lavender:

    Lavandula angustifolia: English lavender comes in many varieties, including 'Hidcote' and 'Munstead'. This lavender has single, leafless stems and compact spikes of blossoms. It is generally low-growing and has a compact, mounded shape. English lavender blooms in late spring to early summer. If it's pruned lightly just after its first flowering, it will likely flower again in late summer. After this second flowering, a full pruning—typically in late August—will prepare it for winter and encourage more blooms in spring.

    Lavandin x intermedia: This hybrid of English and spike lavenders also has many varieties. The most common are 'Grosso', 'Provence', and 'Giant Hidcote'. Its stems are branched and longer than those of English lavender. The flower spikes also are longer, and they have a graceful taper. Lavandins are mounded in shape and usually larger than English lavender with long stems that tend to fan out from the center. Lavandins bloom in mid to late summer and a full pruning after the long blooming season will prepare a plant for winter. Because of the long stems, you might need to prune as much as half the plant’s size.

    Lavandula stoechas: Sometimes called Spanish or French lavender, this is the least hardy of the lavenders with blooms earliest in spring. Spanish lavender has a short, full flower spike with open petals at the top, distinguishing it from other types. Because of its fragility, lightly prune this lavender—never too close to the base—just after the first flowering. Then, follow up with gentle deadheading (removing spent flowers) and shaping for the rest of the season. A slightly more vigorous pruning can be done in late August to prepare the plant for winter and encourage a fuller plant in spring.

    The Spruce / Jayme Burrows

Tips for Pruning Lavender

Pruning is generally necessary for the health of a lavender plant. Not pruning lets a plant get large and woody, and it forms nooks that trap water. This can introduce several hazards:

So keep an eye on your lavender plant throughout the seasons, and remove parts that might cause problems.

Illustration: Catherine Song. © The Spruce, 2018 

How to Grow Lavender: Planting and Care

Learning to prune lavender

Rules for lavender pruning

1. Pruning every year

If you don't prune lavender, it becomes a nodular shrub. The purpose of pruning lavender is to keep the compactness of the bush, which blooms all summer with bluish-purple flowers collected in dense inflorescences, for as long as possible, to give it a neat appearance.

Under natural conditions, lavender bushes very quickly become tall, wide, sprawling and loose. Loose means that the top of the bush has a rather untidy appearance, and the bottom is bare and woody. Of course, we want to avoid such a spectacle, despite the fact that someday lavender will inevitably take on such a look. But the later this happens, the better. This way we can only allow the lavender to grow a minimal amount of height. And regular pruning will help us with this.

If you do not prune lavender for at least one year, then it will immediately grow, its shoots will become woody to the very tips. For the plant, this does not create any problems, on the contrary, it enjoys natural growth. Nothing bad will happen to lavender if its bushes are not cut for several years in a row. But this will create problems for us and our aesthetic perception. The stems bare from below are always striking, and the bush itself has an untidy appearance. Of course, everything can be fixed by making a more radical pruning. But, the older the plant is, the more difficult it is to restore it. Sometimes you have to part with old copies.

Old, woody lavender bushes

2. Pruning time: immediately after flowering

German perennial expert Anja Maubach advises pruning lavender immediately after flowering - this is the second half of July, it all depends on weather conditions. The pruning principles for lavender are the same as for many perennials that are pruned heavily to encourage re-blooming, such as catnip.

Lavender should be trimmed when the flowers begin to fade, that is, when the flowering period is still present, but for the most part it is no longer visible. The gardener must have an inner flair.

But the sooner you prune, the better the lavender builds up new green mass. After all, plants need maximum strength to update. And these forces are given to them by the sun, daylight, warmth, and sometimes fertilizers. Lavender does not need fertilizer. The higher the sun and the longer the day, the better the plant is gaining strength.

The advantage of summer pruning is that lavender will grow a fresh, compact and beautiful green mass in just a few weeks. In addition, lavender branches cut in summer can be considered a harvest, as they do in the famous lavender fields in Provence, in the south of France, because it is during this period that the inflorescences are filled with essential oil.

3. Pruning in spring

Since lavender blooms only in summer, it is good to prune its bushes every year in spring, immediately after frost. This is necessary to rejuvenate the bush and to ensure that the bushes are not exposed from below.

4. Pruning to lignified branches

So, as we have already said, lavender is pruned twice a year. The first pruning stimulates re-blooming in the current year, and the second is carried out in order to give the bushes a beautiful spherical shape. Curly haircut is carried out in the spring when the plant begins to wake up. In this case, radical pruning is carried out, cut to lignified branches. Many lavender lovers are afraid to prune their favorite plants a lot. If the bushes are cut a little, then they will begin to be bare from below, and only a few flowers will stick out from above. No one likes this kind of lavender. Therefore, in order for the bushes of your pet to remain fluffy and compact for many years, the tops of the shoots are shortened by one third, giving the bush a semicircular shape. In this case, the main thing is not to overdo it, because too much pruning - to the base - can destroy the plant.

In the summer, as soon as the lavender begins to bloom, cut off long flower stalks before the seeds begin to set. Plants want to reproduce, and the formation of seeds requires strength. Thanks to pruning, plants do not spend energy on the formation of seeds, but give them to re-flowering. This time, lavender flower stalks are removed along with two or three top pairs of leaves. Thus, the plant will branch well, and the bush will take on a lush appearance.

Lavender varieties like 'Hidcote Blue', 'Siesta' and 'Two Seasons' will re-bloom in as little as 4 weeks.

Lavender 'Hidcote Blue' combined with roses 'Rotilia'

5. Pruning bare bushes!

Old lavender bushes that have not been pruned for several years in a row require special attention. Older plants are more sensitive to radical shearing than younger ones. Complex, strong pruning can cause the death of the entire bush.

When pruning old bare lavender bushes proceed as follows: cut the bush strongly, leaving 5-10 cm above the ground, only on one side. The second half of the bush is left uncut. When new shoots appear and get stronger in the trimmed part of the bush, you can safely cut off the second half. During this period, the plant will have a slightly bizarre appearance, but next year no one will notice such an uneven haircut.

This cutting method is not always successful. If pruning was carried out in the heat, it may happen that the plant will die, but it's still worth a try.

Lavender is a very beautiful and grateful plant. Only a regular haircut will guarantee the compactness of lavender bushes and its abundant flowering.

Translation: Lesya Vasko
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garden center "Your garden"

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Pruning lavender in autumn - rules, photo, video

With fragrant lavender blooming, the garden becomes more elegant and fragrant. But in order for plants to always look attractive and healthy, they need proper care, which includes regular pruning. You can trim lavender bushes several times a year, but special attention should be paid to this procedure in the fall before the onset of cold weather.

Contents

Pruning is an important part of lavender care

Lavender is a shrub, not a herb. And, unlike some types of ornamental shrubs, it requires mandatory pruning. Without it, the bushes will soon acquire a somewhat untidy appearance. In addition, if the plant is not regularly pruned, its branches can quickly become woody to the very tips, as a result of which the emergence of new shoots will be drastically reduced.

Attention! It is better not to prune the plant at a young age. It is advisable to start pruning lavender when it reaches two years. Otherwise, the bushes will have less opportunity to form normally and you can simply not wait for them to bloom.

Lavender belongs to heat-loving plants and feels great in the southern regions. But it tolerates frost well and winters well under shelter in the middle zone of the country. And so that the branches do not break under the yoke of the snow cover, in the fall it is better to prune the bushes and cover them on top with spruce branches or special material to protect the shoots from freezing.

Many gardeners in the Moscow region and more northern regions often do not prune lavender for the winter at all, as they are afraid that it will not have time to prepare for the cold. In such cases, so that the bush does not freeze, you need to collect all the branches in a bundle and bend it to the ground, covering it with spruce branches on top.

How to prune plants

To keep the shrub from losing its decorative qualities, it must be cut one or more times during the year. Too often, this is also not worth doing, otherwise you can disrupt the flowering periods of the plant. There are several cropping methods:

  1. After flowering - under favorable conditions, lavender blooms 2 times: the first - in the middle of summer, and the second - in September. To stimulate re-flowering, the shrub needs pruning. When harvesting vegetable raw materials, the inflorescences are cut off at the beginning of the period, when they have just blossomed. If blooming lavender is needed to make bouquets, you can do this a little later, first enjoying the beauty of the plant in the garden.
  2. Sanitary - such pruning is carried out in the spring, removing broken, diseased and dried branches from the bushes.
  3. Autumn - pruning during this period is carried out to maintain the compactness and decorativeness of the bush, as well as so that its branches do not break under the weight of snow and do not freeze out in cold winters.
  4. Rejuvenating - if the bushes are already quite a few years old, you can try to rejuvenate them by cutting the shoots 5-10 cm from the ground in autumn.

Tip. In order not to accidentally destroy the plant, it is better not to cut off the entire bush at once. It is advisable to first cut the branches of half the bush. And when new shoots grow there next year, it will be possible to remove the old branches and the second half of the bush. But you need to be prepared for the fact that the old plant will not survive and will have to be replaced with a new one.

How to prune lavender bushes in autumn

Autumn pruning of lavender is very important, because it depends on how well the plant will survive the winter cold, and whether the bush will retain its decorative effect and attractive appearance. Therefore, it is necessary to approach this procedure very responsibly. If you have to do it for the first time, then it is better to first watch this process on a video or step-by-step photos in order to understand exactly how such trimmings are made.

Cutting pattern

When pruning lavender bushes, there are certain rules that are better to follow: