How to grow and use lavender.

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If you read articles about growing lavender, you will find that some say you need alkaline soil- I have acid soil and lavender grows well!
You may read that lavender likes a dry climate- we have a wet climate here! Don't be put off trying to grow lavender. Here The Garden Expert tells you about picking the right lavender for your soil and climate. Here are some more tips from The Herb Expert .Both of these experts are UK based.
For information on growing lavender in the US, Mountain Valley Growers have an excellent website.
I grow at least five different lavenders. Bunch them together for best effect.
Harvest the flowers in dry weather , prune the bushes back after flowering, and leave them alone the rest of the time. It works for me!

In Ancient Egypt, lavender was used as a perfume and for embalming.
In Ancient Greece, the perfume was also used, and the healing and antiseptic properties of lavender were recognised.
The Romans used lavender for its medicinal qualities, and also for washing, and strewing on the floor to freshen the air.
Lavender is recorded again in the monasteries of the middle ages, where it was used as a herbal remedy.
In the 16th Century Queen Elizabeth I of England drank lavender tea for her migraines, and lavender perfumes and soaps were used by the wealthy.
During the 17th Century lavender was carried to try to ward off the spread of diseases, such as the Great plague in England in 1665.
The plague song "A ring a ring of roses, a pocket full of posies, atishoo, atishoo, we all fall down", often sung as a nursery rhyme, refers in fact to the posy of herbs, including lavender- helping to stop the spread of sneezing, fever and "falling down"- death.

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A Pocketful of posies- flowers and herbs carried around in little bags to prtoect from disease.
The Victorians in 19th Century Britain used lavender in vast quantities. Queen Victoria had her own personal lavender supplier. Dried lavender bags were placed in wardrobes. Ladies wore lavender inside their dresses, lavender was used everywhere, in soaps, perfumes,polish,and in medicines. Mitcham in South London became know for its lavender oil, and English lavender was exported around the world.The Yardley company made all types of lavender cosmetics, and Yardley's Lavender became famous.The downside of this was that in the 20th century, lavender was thought of as being Victorian , an old person's perfume, stuffy and unfashionable.
In recent years, with the revival of interest in natural herbal cosmetics, aromatherapy and the healing powers of plants, lavender has become popular once again.
Lavender is produced all over the world. The Shakers took lavender to the USA, the lavender fields of Provence, Southern France, are still the best known lavender area, but lavender also grows well in England, Italy, Spain, and many other parts of Europe, as well as Japan, Australia, the USA and Canada.

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Lavender fields in Sequim,Washington

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Bring lavender into your rooms. Lavender has been used for centuries to freshen the air and drive away bad odours.Displayed on its own, it has to be admitted, lavender is dull, but as part of an arrangement of garden flowers, it shows to good effect, and the perfume lingers.
The dried lavender flowers can be used in pot pourris, and the old tradtional of sewing lavender in little muslin bags to put amongst your bed linen is once again popular.
A simple lavender cologne like this wonderful English Lavender Cologne Spray
soothes , scents and calms all day long.Lavender soaps, cosmetics, and essential oils are all back in favor.

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Lavender has been loved throughout history.
Here are just a few of the many quotations about lavender that I've chosen as my favorites.

"Lavender is for lovers true, Which evermore be faine; Desiring always for to have Some pleasure for their paine: And when that they obtained have The love that they require, Then have they all their perfect joie, And quenched is the fire."-Clement Robinson 1584

"The floures of Lavender picked from the knaps, I meane the blew part and not the husk, mixed with Cinnamon, Nutmeg, and Cloves, made into powder, and given to drinke in the distilled water thereof, doth helpe the panting and passion of the heart, previaleth against giddinesse, turning or swimming of the brain, and members subject to the palsie.
French Lavander hath a body like Lavander, short and of woodie substance, but slenderer, beset with long narrow leaves, of a whitish colour, lesser than those of Lavender, it hath in the top bushe or spikie heads, well compact or thrust together, out the which grow forth small purple flowers or a pleasant smell. The seede is small and blackish: The roote is harde and woodie.- John Gerard, 1597



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Here is the frontspiece from John Gerard's Herbal, a comprehensive books of herbs and herbal remedies, published 1597

"There's a few things I've learned in life: always throw salt over your left shoulder, keep rosemary by your garden gate, plant lavender for good luck, and fall in love whenever you can" Shakespeare, A Winter's Tale 1623

"Being an inhabitant almost in every garden, it is so well known, that it needs no description." -Culpepper, the Complete Herbal 1652

"Oh, they are such savages! I'm sure if I had not put lavender on my pocket handkerchief, like Mama, I should have fainted away-" Joanna Baillie , pioneer Scottish poet and dramatist , writing about an election in 1798

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