When and How to Prune Lavender for Lush, Showy Plants

12.06.2023 - 00:59 / gardenerspath.com / Lorna Kring

Highly popular for their gorgeous flowers and exquisite herbal perfume, the best way to keep lavender plants at their peak is to become skilled at pruning.

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These tough, woody perennials are mostly self-sufficient and handle lean soils, hot sun, and arid conditions without missing a beat.

Pollinators flock to their sweet mauve, pink, purple, and white flowers, while the intense essential oils repel deer and gnawing rodents.

The pretty plants make a beautiful addition to barriers, beds, borders, containers, foundations, and rockeries.

And freshly cut flowers add scented beauty to floral arrangements while dried flowers add long-lasting fragrance to potpourri and floral sachets.

If you need cold-hardy plants for tough winters, there are many suitable selections. Or if you need a lavender cultivar for high heat and humidity, there are plenty of those too.

About the only thing they don’t do on their own is keep leggy stem growth in check.

That’s where you and your garden snips come in…

With just a little annual trimming, you can keep lavender compact, dense, and floriferous for many years.

What’s that? Your plants are already overgrown and leggy? Not to worry, we have the details on how to give them a second life with a rejuvenating hard prune as well.

So sharpen up your shears and read on to learn how to prune lavender for lush, showy plants!

Here’s what’s ahead:

Pruning is an important step in the maintenance of woody subshrubs like lavender.

Not only does it tidy plants for a compact, uniform profile, but it also slows the growth of bare lower stems