Over-wintering Lavender
Answered by: Inge Poot
Question from: Cathy Nadalin
Posted on: June 12, 2005

I am into my second year growing lavender and this last winter (2004-2005) seemed to be hard on the plants. I only have 100, but had more shipped this year from you. They had a blanket of snow covering them most of the winter and I thought they were well insulated, but they are not recovering well as yet. Would you have any helpful info regarding this?

Lavender tend to rot in winter if they are wet. Since the winters in Southern Ontario, Canada tend to have strongly fluctuating temperatures, there almost always will be periods when the snow turns to slush several times per winter and lavenders hate this. Try to put straw amongst the plants, some braces( tall rocks, triangles made of boards, etc) to stop the weight of the snow from compressing the plants into the ground and then cover the whole thing with plastic or other water-proof material. Add more straw on top to hold the snow and stop the sun from heating the plants below the cover.

For isolated plants, a plastic cake cover popped over the plant, with straw added over this to hold snow, works well. You may have to put a rock on top of the cover to stop the wind from blowing it off.,

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