It is very interesting to plant several feet of lavender to enjoy the exquisite scent of this beautiful Mediterranean in the four corners of the garden. Nothing could be easier if you opt for cuttings. This is the best technique for propagating lavender even without any knowledge of horticulture. Let’s take a look at how to get plenty of lavender feet for less.
Cutting lavender: materials and substrate needed
Lovely, deliciously scented, lavender symbolizes the southern regions and is a fan of sunny gardens. But it is not easy to propagate by seed. You can of course harvest your seeds and try to sow them, but the results are not always satisfactory, far from it. Fortunately, these plants of the genus Washing her can multiply by cuttings and failures are almost impossible! You just need to have several small terracotta pots with a pierced bottom because for the rooting of cuttings, plastic is not recommended.
In terms of substrateit is recommended to opt for a airy and light mix which will promote root development. You can opt either for a substrate made up of one volume of pozzolan and two volumes of potting soil, or for a mixture of 50% sand and 50% potting soil.
Propagate lavender: choose your cuttings
To successfully multiply your lavender plants, you should select healthy shoots and very vigorous. These can be shoots that have finished flowering or those that have no flowers. Before installing them in the pots, remove the bottom leaves so as to keep only four at most. The base of the stem should be bevel cut. For a clean cut, the ideal is to use a cutter with a sharp blade.
Each stem to be transplanted is to be soaked beforehand in a rooting accelerator fertilizer. Then tap to remove the excess. Remember, if need be, that the European Community currently prohibits the marketing of rooting hormone, but there are various alternative solutions in garden centres.
Propagate lavender: a small earthen pot for each shoot
This operation poses no difficulty. It is important to choose the most vigorous young plants, the most frail risking not supporting the handling.
Lavender cuttings are protect from direct sunlight for a good fortnight after potting. Thereafter, full sunlight is needed to allow them to gain vigor. In this way, when the young lavenders have to be transplanted to their final location, they will be able to withstand the heat better.
As soon as the young shoots are planted in the small terracotta pots, it is imperative that they are water and if the substrate settles, care is taken to add a handful or two to complete the level. Subsequently, the watering have to be regular but moderate because the roots should not be immersed in water.
Planting lavender cuttings: setting up in spring
Young lavender plants spend the winter in their little pots, well sheltered from the cold and heavy rain. It is not until the following spring that they can be planted in place. It is in April or May that they are transplanted, even a little later in regions where the risk of late frosts is frequent. The ideal is to take out each foot with a gougewhich avoids damaging the roots.
It is possible to further facilitate the stage of planting in place if you take care to install your cuttings at the start in small individual biodegradable cups. When the time comes, all you have to do is plant feet and buckets in the desired location. Thereafter, it will be necessary to take care of the size of your lavenders so that they do not lose their hair at the base and retain their beautiful rounded shape.
Thanks to the method of cuttings, from a single lavender plant you can obtain a multitude of new plants which will subsequently give lavender absolutely identical to the mother plant because it is a kind of cloning. So it’s a great way to line your garden path with fragrant lavender or even for create beds in dry soil facing south. In addition to bringing some accents of Provence to its natural space, we please the bees and other pollinating insects that we need so much. You can even install a few new lavender plants in the vegetable garden to naturally repel a number of parasites.