Lavender is one of our favorite plants for Sonoma County gardens. At Details Landscape Art, we design and build many different garden styles throughout Sonoma, Marin, and Napa Counties, and lavender is one of the plants we use most frequently because of its color, fragrance, texture, and drought tolerance.
Lavender provides soft texture and cool blue blooms
The soft bluish-purple flowers blend beautifully with white roses, maroon barberry, golden breath of heaven, rich green euonymus, evergreen lomandra grasses, and many other full-sun plants. It is also widely used in perfumes, aromatic oils, soaps, lotions, and sachets. Most varieties attract bees, hummingbirds, and other pollinators, making them a valuable addition to the garden.
Fields of lavender are grown throughout Northern California, and anyone who has visited Provence, France has likely seen the spectacular fields stretching to the horizon. In the home garden, masses of lavender provide both visual beauty and wonderful fragrance.
The texture is equally important. Its soft, mounding form contrasts beautifully with the structured branching of Japanese maples, the bolder texture of evergreen shrubs, upright ornamental grasses, and large masses of flowering plants.
Why Use Lavender in the Garden?
Lavender offers several advantages beyond its attractive flowers.
It thrives in full sun, tolerates drought once established, and generally requires little fertilizer. It performs particularly well in Mediterranean-style gardens, dry creek beds, and other low-water landscape designs.
We often use lavender in mass plantings where the repetition of color and texture creates a strong visual impact. The soft gray-green foliage provides year-round interest even when the plant is not in bloom.
This plant also contributes an important color element to the landscape. Bluish-purple flowers combine well with nearly every other garden color palette and help soften stronger reds, yellows, and oranges.
Lavender Requires Regular Maintenance
While it is relatively drought tolerant and easy to grow, it is not maintenance free.
Most varieties benefit from regular deadheading after each bloom cycle. Depending on the variety and location, the first bloom may occur in spring. If the spent flowers are removed promptly, a second bloom often follows in early summer. Additional pruning may encourage a third flush of flowers later in the season.
Without periodic pruning, this perennial tends to become leggy and woody, reducing both its appearance and flowering performance.
Lavender also prefers well-drained soil and generally performs best without heavy fertilization. Excess fertilizer often produces lush growth at the expense of flowers.
Lavender plants can become woody and less attractive as they age, particularly if they are not regularly deadheaded and pruned. After several years, some plants may benefit from replacement to maintain the best appearance in the garden.
Popular Varieties
There are many excellent varieties available. Some of our favorites include:
Lavandula ‘Provence’ (French) – Our favorite variety. Typically grows three to four feet tall including the flower spikes. Soft periwinkle-colored flowers provide a long bloom season. ‘Alba’ is a white-flowering form.
Lavender ‘Provence’ in a Mediterranean style garden
Lavandula stoechas ‘Quasti’ (Spanish) – A compact variety with darker purple flowers and a distinctive appearance.
Lavandula angustifolia ‘Hidcote’ (English) – A smaller plant growing approximately eighteen to twenty-four inches tall and wide, with purplish-blue flowers.
Lavandula angustifolia ‘Munstead’ – One of the best compact lavenders, typically growing about eighteen inches tall and two feet wide, with bright lavender-colored flowers.
Color, Fragrance, and Texture
Few plants offer the combination of fragrance, texture, color, and drought tolerance that lavender provides.
Lavender with pennisetum orientalis
If the homeowner does not mind occasional deadheading and pruning, lavender can be one of the most rewarding perennials in the garden. Whether planted in masses, used as an accent, or incorporated into a Mediterranean-style landscape, lavender continues to be one of our favorite plants for Sonoma County gardens.