Lavender Spacing in Production Fields
Answered by: Conrad Richter
Question from: Mary Claytor
Posted on: January 20, 2004

My husband and I have been setting up a Lavender Farm here in Oklahoma for the last 2 years. We purchased plants from you last year and were very happy with them. We need more information on the spacing of the plants in each row, the spacing of the rows themselves and pruning for the plants for best dried stems and seeds.

We will be getting plug trays from you of Provence, Grosso and Twickle. We have the book by Virginia McNaughton but it really does not give you this information. We want the plants to give us as much dried stem as possible. Do you have recommendations on other helpful books or where to get this information?

In the ProGrowers section of our website (http://www.richters.com/progrow.cgi?search=Lavender) you will find that lavender is grown with a wide range of field spacings:

"Field spacing: 60-120cm between rows x 25-120cm within rows."

At a minimum, lavender requires 60cm (2 ft.) between rows and 25cm (10 in.) between plants within rows. This is appropriate for the smaller english-group lavenders, Lavandula angustifolia, such as ‘Twickle Purple’. The larger L. x intermedia varieties, ‘Grosso’ and ‘Provence’, would need more space, at least 50% more.

It is important to realize that recommended field spacings take into account two separate needs: the need of the plants for room to grow without excessive crowding, and the need for additional space so that the grower can perform weed control and essential tasks around the plants. So, with that in mind, the 60cm x 25cm for ‘Twickle Purple’ and 90cm x 40cm for ‘Grosso’ and ‘Provence’ would provide enough space for hand weeding and hand-harvest; but to stay competitive and reduce your labour costs you should space your rows further apart to allow machinery to get through the field. This additional spacing is entirely dependent on the type of machinery you plan to use to control weeds, etc. In practice, the intermedia lavender rows generally are spaced 120cm (4 ft.) apart, but some farms space them out even more, especially if space is available.

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