I've tried for years to grow lavender from seed, with no success. Finally, I broke down this year and bought a 1-gallon plant. It was one of the best investments I've made for my herb garden! My French Lavender is still blooming, while many of my other herbs stopped when the fall nights turned cold, here in the high desert of Northern Nevada. My tomatoes may have given up their last fruit, but my lavender is still going strong. This wonderfully fragrant herb will do well in just about any garden.
Lavender is a graceful perennial shrub, native to the Mediterranean. It usually grows about 2 to 3 feet high, and does best in dry, well-drained soil. Its gray-green leaves are slender and elongated, covered with fine, downy hairs. Both the leaves and flowers give off a delicate,
sweet scent. In the Middle Ages, the herb was strewn about towns to mask the scent of smelly streets. (They didn't have indoor plumbing back then.) It was also strewn indoors to mask strong household odors. (They didn't have deodorants, either, or any way to refrigerate their foods. The Middle Ages was certainly a smelly time!)
The Greeks and Romans added the herb to their bath water, in fact, its' name derives from the Latin word lavare, which means "to wash." In fact, in Victorian England, washer women were called "lavenders." Queen Victoria kept her palace scented with the fragrant herbs, and Napoleon bathed with lavender water.
There are many different species of lavender, some experts say as many as 28, although their history has become tangled and muddled. The variety most commonly called English lavender is really lavandula angustifolia. The other most common strain is French lavender, or lavandula dentata. It is not quite as perfumed as the English variety, but it blooms about 9 months out of the year in most climates. The English variety only blooms in June, July, and August.
As I mentioned before, lavender is difficult to grow from seed. Most commonly it's grown from cuttings of mature plants, or by breaking down and buying a plant, like I did! This fragrant herb doesn't do well in a shady or damp garden. The best time to pick lavender for cooking or drying is before the last flowers on each stalk are completely open. This is when their essential oil content is at its highest, and they will be their most flavorful. It's a good idea to harvest them early in the morning, before the sun has a chance to dry out the oils.
Lavender makes a good hedge and soil stabilizer. The flowers are tender, so protect them from high winds, or plant in a sheltered spot. Adding lime to the soil, and clipping flowers the first year will help your plants spread to as much as 5 feet across. Lavender's strong sweet scent makes it a good companion to other plants in your garden. In the herb garden, it does especially well with thyme. It's good with just about any garden vegetable, aiding in their growth and flavor. It repels ticks, moths, and mice. It also keeps lice away from your roses. If you'd like to attract butterflies and bees to your garden, plant lavender, they love it.
This herb may not be a well-known herb for use in the kitchen, but there are certainly many things you can do with lavender if you use your imagination. Both the leaves and the flowers can be used in cooking, with the flowers being the stronger flavored of the two. Remember, when you use lavender as a flavoring, it can be very strong. You should use it carefully until you get used to it's unique, sweet taste. The flowers are used in salads, vinegars, and jellies. Lavender sugar can be used to flavor just about anything, just remember to use it sparingly. Puddings and biscuits are two recipes that lend themselves well to lavender sugar. A 1655 recipe for lavender icing was used in a royal kitchen to frost plain cakes and biscuits. To form the icing, lavender petals were chopped, then mixed with sugar and rosewater to form a paste.
Lavender Sugar 2 Tablespoons fresh lavender flowers 1 Cup superfine sugar In a large, dry glass jar, make alternate layers of sugar and lavender flowers until the jar is full. Cover tightly and leave in a warm place (on top of the refrigerator is a good place), for 1-2 weeks. Shake the jar occasionally to blend the scent. Sieve the sugar, then place the flowers in the bottom of the jar, and return the sugar to the jar. Makes about 1 Cup of scented sugar.
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I love Lavender it gives off such a beautiful scent. Maureen
Conicview 23.10.2001 11:04
Another great op. I grew some lavender with great difficulty - two plants out of a whole packet! I love this plant even though they don't seem to do well in my garden.
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