When to plant lavender?
- Botanical name
- Lavandula angustifolia
- Family
- Lamiaceae
Lavender is planted from April to May. It is harvested from June to August. It is cut back from August to September.
Lavender is a woody perennial. The edible parts are the flowers.
Lavender dies in heavy, compacted clay, because the roots rot in standing water. In such ground it goes on a bank or a raised bed, so that the water runs off. It comes through winter outdoors without cover where the soil is free draining. In fed ground it makes more leaf and less essential oil in the flower, so no heavy feeding goes in before planting.
Woody stems never shoot again after a cut, so the cut stays in the leafy part of the shoot. The faded stems come off together with the short leafy piece below them. Cut every year, the plant stays lower.
At 30 centimetres the plants close up into a low hedge. At 90 centimetres each bush has room to reach its own width and shape.
Lavender through the year
- planting
- harvest
- cutting back
In short
Growing conditions
The flowers are listed as edible and as toxic at once. The toxicity is to cats and dogs, not to people.
Is lavender toxic to cats and dogs?
Yes. Toxic to cats and dogs, toxic parts: stems, leaves and flowers.
Pests and diseases
Listed here is every problem for which the sources name this plant as a host. The problems are not listed in order of how common they are.
- Signs
- Over the upper side of the leaves there is a coarse pale speckling, and on the underside small animals that jump away quickly. By the end of summer the leaf can be heavily mottled, while the growth of the plant is hardly affected. The affected herbs are perfectly safe to eat.
- Prevention
- It overwinters as an egg on the plant itself and is active from May into autumn, so cleared old wood and foliage at the end of the season helps. Encourage birds, ladybirds, parasitic wasps and ground beetles.
- What to do
- No spray is needed: the pest does not affect the growth or the vigour of the plant, so the right answer is to put up with it. If the look bothers you, cut back the most mottled shoots, because the new growth comes clean.
- Signs
- The leaves are eaten and left as short stubs with a grey brown edge where the tissue has dried. The metallic green and purple beetles are on the plant all year round.
- Prevention
- Action is usually not needed, because a healthy plant takes the beetle. Encourage birds and ground beetles.
- What to do
- Pick them off by hand or shake the branches over a sheet of paper laid underneath, easiest in the morning, when the beetles are slow.
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Related plants
The plants below are in the same botanical family (Lamiaceae).
Sources about the plant: ASPCA Toxic and Non-Toxic Plants, BUND Region Hannover, GBIF Backbone Taxonomy, NC State Extension Plant Toolbox, Royal Horticultural Society, University of Georgia Extension, University of Illinois Extension, University of New Hampshire Extension, Utah State University Extension, Wikidata. Checked between 14 and 17 August 2026. The problem descriptions also draw on: EPPO Global Database.