Growing Lovely Lavender Herb Plants, Easy, Fragrant Herb Plants for Dry Gardens

Mature lavender plants reach 3 to 4 tall and 4 to 6 feet wide with narrow green or gray green leaves. They are great in rock gardens, herb gardens or as low, informal hedges. They add structure to gardens with their evergreen leaves.

The entire plant is strongly fragrant and the leaves can be sticky with essential oils.

The purple flowers bloom on long thin, squarish stalks and the buds can be 1 to 1 1/2" long. The flowers are great in fresh bouquets or dried for arrangements. The dried blooms make excellent potpourri and can be used to freshen linen closets and drawers. Wrap up a few fresh blossoms in cotton, or other clean fabric and tuck it into your drawer.

Lavender is a great insect repellent. The branches are highly fragrant and I like to tuck them into my woodpile to keep out bugs.

Lavender has been used in love potions for centuries. It is also worn to magically attract love and elevate mood.

Two of the more popular home garden forms are French lavender (Lavandula dentata) and English lavender (Lavandula angustifolia, l. officinalis):

French Lavender Plants reach 3 to 4 tall and 4 to 6 feet wide. French is more drought tolerant with more compact flowers.

English Lavender Plants grow to about 2 feet high and as wide. The English variety is known to be shorter-lived (3 to 5 years), but is considered to have a more complex flower fragrance.