Lavender Plants

Lavender earns its place in an Australian garden as a low grey-green mound that flowers for months and then asks for very little. It suits the hot, open, dry corner: a west-facing bed, a gravel or coastal-style garden, a soft edge along a path, or a large pot on a sunny courtyard. Buy it if you have at least six hours of direct sun and soil that drains freely, and if you want long flowering and bee traffic without committing to a watering routine. If your only space is shaded or stays soggy after rain, choose something else: lavender will not grow out of it.

The plants stocked here fall into three groups. English Summer Blue is the true English lavender, Lavandula angustifolia, with short tight spikes and the sweet scent most people mean when they say lavender. It is the one to pick for drying and for cooler inland and southern gardens. The Lavandula pedunculata cultivars are the Spanish types, recognisable by the tall bracts above each flower head, and they tend to start earlier and hold on longer through warm, humid weather. Fairy Wings Spellbound sits in that group with Fairy Wings Radiance, Fairy Wings Whimsical, Blushberry Ruffles and Bubbleberry Ruffles, which differ mainly in flower and bract colour. The third group is the Lavandula hybrids: The King, The Princess, The Snow Princess, Purple Reign, Pink Lace, Lilac Lace, Vanillaberry Ruffles and Silver Princess. Double Lavish Rose is the outlier, a double flower form rather than the usual single spike.

Pot size tells you what stage you are buying. Every cultivar except Double Lavish Rose comes in 140mm, a young starter that costs less and establishes quickly. The King, The Princess and Purple Reign also come in 200mm, the Fairy Wings cultivars in 180mm, and Silver Princess in 175mm, which gives a fuller plant and roughly a season's head start. Nothing here is advanced stock, so plan on plants bulking up in the ground.

Full sun, all day if you can, and free drainage above all else. Lavender dies of wet feet: root and crown rot in heavy clay, or in a bed that stays damp through a humid summer. It is far more common than frost or drought, and it shows up as a plant that greys off, wilts and collapses within a fortnight of heavy rain, often after years of looking healthy. The fix happens at planting. Mound the bed 20 to 30cm above surrounding ground or build a raised bed, open heavy clay with gypsum and compost rather than sand, keep mulch off the stem, and water only until established. In humid subtropical gardens, grow it in a pot of gritty mix instead. Shear lightly after each flowering flush to keep the mound tight, cutting into green growth only, because bare old wood will not reshoot.

If lavender suits your conditions, the same bed will usually carry other sun-hardy plants. Browse low-maintenance plants on the same low-water brief, flowering plants for colour to run alongside it, and hedges for a clipped green backdrop behind it, or shop all plants to see the full range. Every order ships farm-direct with flat $99 delivery across QLD, NSW, VIC, SA, ACT and WA, a $399 minimum order, and the 30-Day Healthy Plant Guarantee.

New to these plants? Read our guide: Growing lavender in Australia.