How to Prune French Lavender
French lavender is beloved for its fragrance and culinary powers. This herb can be grown indoors or outdoors. French lavender features greyish-purple blossoms that can grow quite tall if left unchecked. French lavender performs best if kept under a height of three feet,. You can harvest your lavender while in bloom, but you should cut back your French lavender plant until it's finished flowering for the season. Does this Spark an idea?
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Instructions
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Harvest any lavender flowers during the blooming season. Only choose blooms that haven't browned. Cut off the entire stem using your pruning shears. This saves a step in later pruning. Wait until the blossoms have died back to prune your lavender plant.
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Trim off any remaining flowering stems at the base of the stem.
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Cut back all plant stems by one-third to help the plant thrive. It's important to start this practice while the plant is young. If the plant is not cut back annually in this manner, the stems will become woody and the plant will stop producing. If you have an old lavender plant with woody stems, you can try to rejuvenate it with pruning. In this case, cut the stems close to the woody part but do not cut into the woody growth.
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Cut away older parts of the plant that are not producing at all.
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Tips & Warnings
Make sure to leave some green leaves on the plant when pruning. If you cut past the point of growth, you'll kill the plant.
You can also prune your plant back in the early spring and again in the fall, after bloom. Follow the same process of cutting back the stems by one-third. This works better with low-producing plants that don't have much foliage.
