How do you hedge trim your lavender?

Hi guys,

I have two rows of Gros Bleu for a total of about 100-ft of hedge trimming that are about 4-5yrs old now. I'm still pretty much a young guy, but last year my Southpaw was speakin' to me after a marathon session with my Felco's.

I've been mulling over buying a nice new gas-powered hedge trimmer to get both the lavender as well as the grasses, but now I'm wondering if a good old-fashioned handheld hedge shears wouldn't be even better? I've read that besides the maintenance annoyances with another gas-powered machine that they can create quite a mess when it comes to clean-up. I generally dislike powered tools and am a bit of a Luddite in the garden.

The internet is full of ridiculous simplicities about how to prune lavender and that is definitely not my question. As usual, I trustfully await your experienced responses!

 

Use the power tool unless you find it doesn't get the kind of contact with the stems you are looking for. In which case perhaps you may need a different head or a different model altogether. Follow up with the manual tools afterward, here and there, same as with shearing a formal hedge. You will have to rake up afterward whatever you use, unless you are throwing all the prunings right into a can or onto a tarp as you go, when using the manual tools. However, you could also put a tarp down beneath the power tool, emptying it and moving it along as you go.

The main bother with power shears is the weight and the noise (and fumes). As with chain saws sometimes they can also refuse to start. If you use an electric model instead you have to bother with cords, unless there are battery powered ones that work out - I had a battery lawn mower for awhile that quit running, with the vendor telling me afterward that I had to run the battery down all the way each time or it wouldn't re-charge! My place is bigger than most and still I did not drain the whole battery with each use.

 

I think that the hedge trimmers should do fine. I use my gas line trimmer to trim my fifty feet of Munstead lavender. It does just fine. I have another lavender that did not come with a label but it is much bigger and smells much better. I hand trim this one each year because it just looks better when I do so. I can take out the handfuls of cuttings without them falling down into the plant (which is about 6' x 6' x 4' tall now.) But I can't afford the time and backache for the Munstead!

I prefer gas over electric only for the fact that I have too much property to use electric gardening tools, but electric, especially cordless, are pretty darn handy.