Hi there; I've tried for several years to grow English Lavender, the first year s does great, grows bushy and has plenty of bossoms, but I can't seem to make it through the winter. I live in a Z5a area, the location I have planted it is on the South side of my home, in my herb garden I have onion chives on one end, garlic chives on the other end, some lemon thyme, The English Lavender I planted is between the to types of chives. soil is good and it gets mostly all afternoon sun.
Lavender is a tender perennial. It can be especially tender if the area in which you live has long, harsh winters. In the fall, I usually cut mine back just a bit and mulch it with wood chips or dead leaves. This will protect it and increase its chances of coming back the next spring.
I don't mulch any of my 15 or so plants for the winter. Even tiny self-sown seedlings survive the winters and they can be downright cold and with little to no snow cover. If you do plan to use some kind of organic material for mulch be careful to only put it down AFTER the ground has frozen and remove it early enough in spring. What you don't want is too much moisture sitting around the crown; Lavender HATES excessive moisture at the crown (or wet feet for that matter) and will definitely cause rot issues. You might want to more importantly make sure that where you plant the soil is perfectly draining. If you are planting with chives and the soil holds enough moisture to support chives then my guess is too much water for the Lavender...the plants have completely different watering needs. If you need to plant in the same location, try planing in hills. Here my Lavender are planted out with plants like Thyme sp., Blue Flax, Echinacea sp., Sedums, nepeta, ect...all having similar needs for water and soil type (fast draining (gravelly/sandy), dry and not too fertile. Vera
Mannieboo, this is my first year growing lavender, and i have some advice that might help: first off lavender is a tender plant... you might want to get a very hardy cultivar to bump up your chances of growing through the winter... but almost as important is that lavender needs AMAZING drainage! especially in cold climates. if your soil is clay and drains poorly think about digging 2.5 feet down and putting 3-5 inches of gravel to help drain water away from the plant... lavender does best in poor soil too (it's a weird plant lol) i hope you have luck this winter! happy growing
Be sure to check out Http://everything-lavender.com which has a lot of useful information about Lavender and the different varieties.
