I have never met a person called Lavender. I suddenly feel quite bereft. There is, of course, Lavender Brown with her particular interest in divination, a crush on Ron Weasley, and an untimely death at the claws of werewolf Fenrir Greyback. Lavender Brown was a bit ditzy. The lavender in my garden is a solid performer. Low maintenance and reliable.
I always associated lavender with England. Maybe because of the variety of English Lavender, which is not English. It is from the Mediterranean, which explains why it does so well at our place. We are technically sub-tropical (apparently), but we are not as humid as the coast. Lavender loves warm weather. It copes well with hot weather, but humidity, not so much. Our lavender started flowering in July – the middle of winter if you agree with the traditional view of seasons. I believe our spring starts in August, so let’s say it is flowering in late winter and early spring. The bees are buzzing around it now. I would show you, but have you ever tried to photograph a bee? It requires more patience than I have.
Caring for Lavender is easy-peasy. The most, most important thing is that lavender does not like wet feet. Dry feet. That means a raised garden bed. Ours is in a bed about knee height, friends with neighbouring rosemary. The rosemary was there when we moved in (making it many decades old), so I knew it was a spot for lavender too.
I hardly ever water the lavender. Maybe with the hose in summer, but it is not in my sprinkler zone.
Once a year, early winter or late autumn, I throw it some all-round fertiliser, and I have read it likes some lime every second year, so I have started doing that too, but I would not say either is necessary. If I forget to fertilise, I still get flowers and a healthy plant
It gets a bit leggy and ugly, trim it back – but not the woody stems.