How to grow better lavender flowers every year with gardening expert’s 5 easy steps

Lavender plants are a sight to behold in the summer months with their striking purple blooms and silvery leaves.

However, gardeners should be aware, that older lavenders can become woody, leggy, and unsightly due to poor drainage, under-watering, over-watering, extreme temperatures, or incorrect pruning.

Lavender-growing expert @withinyoufarm on TikTok, which is run by a family in Pennsylvania, has spilt the beans on how to keep your lavender plants “looking amazing year after year” and avoid them turning into “turning into a woody mess”.

The green-fingered pros mentioned that it’s “common” for lavender plants to look smashing in the first few years but then get “woody and overgrown”.

To make sure your lavenders stay stunning throughout the years, the expert insists there are five key steps every gardener should stick to.

1. Prune lavender buds in the first year

When you spot buds forming in the first year, don’t dilly-dally prune them immediately.

It might be hard to say goodbye to those lovely purple flowers, but snipping them off pronto will redirect energy to the roots rather than the blooms.

2. Prune lavender aggressively at the end of the growing season

The most crucial annual task, according to the expert, is to give your plants a good, aggressive pruning.

They advised: “At the end of the growing season, well before the frost, here we do it in August and early September, is to prune the lavender plants back aggressively.

“So my general rule of thumb is there’s kind of a woody centre to lavender, and you want to prune at least three to four inches above that, and then I just kind of shape them into a nice dome, and that’s all you have to do for the year and you leave them there until the spring. This is the number one tip is, prune aggressively.”

3. Trim away dead sections in spring

Come spring, garden enthusiasts may spot dead areas in their plants. These should be snipped out to give the plant more airflow before it begins to grow. If done right, healthy-looking buds will sprout in the plant’s second year.

4. Snip off lavender flowers post-bloom to avoid stress

Lavender plants truly shine during the summer months, blooming with gorgeous scented purple flowers.

While it might be tempting to let these linger on the plants throughout summer and into autumn, the expert advised gardeners to trim the flowers off towards summer’s end.

Keeping the flowers on the plant for an extended period can actually “stress out the plant”. Getting rid of the spent flower heads can enable the plant to channel more energy into its roots.