How is lavender harvested

If the flowers are in bloom at harvest, the bundles will drop most of the flowers and buds from the stems after drying. If the end product are buds, then lavender should be harvested when approximately one-quarter to one-half of the lavender flowers on the stem are in bloom.

However if the end product is essential oil, the optimum time to harvest is when approximately half of the flowers on the stem have withered. The oil accumulation is at its maximum, and quality is typically at its peak. Lavender must be dry when harvested. Harvesting when wet can cause discoloration, mold in bundled lavender and can potentially result in chemical changes in the essential oil that can reduce quality.

It is also ideal not to harvest when it is very hot, which may cause wilting and oil reduction. The best time for harvest is from mid-morning until early afternoon. Then, the flowers corolla emerge from the buds — The lavender is blooming. Not all buds on the same spike bloom at once.

Look at these two spikes, for example:. Sprig 1 has closed buds, while Sprig 2 is blooming and ready for harvest. Notice how its buds are completely closed, and they still have a translucent, greenish hue.

Some of its buds are in full bloom, and many others the buds with the dried, blue-violet petals on their tips have already bloomed. Of course, you may not be inclined to harvest lavender stem by stem. You can approach your lavender plants in sections, harvesting parts of the plant at various times, when each part is at its peak bloom. The best way to learn is by doing. Bring rubber bands so that you can make bundles of lavender as you harvest, which you can enjoy fresh or hang upside-down in a cool, dark place to dry.

You can pull off some of the leaves as you harvest to speed up the drying process. This lovely herb is a vigorous grower, so keep a sharp pair of pruners around. It may be difficult to grow in our region, but Southerners aren't going to let a little humidity stop them from cultivating beautiful, fragrant lavender plants in their garden. Like many plants, a healthy lavender bush owes its longevity partly to proper pruning and harvesting.

Follow these steps on how to prune and harvest lavender. Lavender is a semi-shrub, or subshrub, a plant that looks like a perennial because most of its growth is soft and green, but its older base stems turn to wood. At the center of the mounded semi-shrub, the lavender is trying to turn to wood; weak wood that can split and no longer produces new shoots. Pruning each year will help slow down the formation of wood and extend the vigor and lifetime of your plant. Because lavender blooms on the stems that grow in the current year, pruning can be done in early- or mid-spring without sacrificing the current year's flowering.

If the classic bluish-purple varieties don't fit your colour scheme, you can also find white-flowered versions such as 'Alba' and its smaller sibling, 'Nana Alba' great for border edging , and pinks such as 'Hidcote Pink' and 'Loddon Pink'. Lavender can be started from seed, but it does take some patience as germination can take many months. An easier way to propagate lavender is by cuttings, which provides a mature plant much earlier and ensures that it will be identical to the parent plant.

Pruning lavender in cool climates is a two-step process, whether for individual plants or for hedging. The flowering stems can be harvested while in bloom or snipped off after the flowers fade to keep the plant tidy.

Leave the foliage over the winter to protect new growth from frosts, then in spring trim the plants fairly hard to prevent them from becoming leggy and bare at the base. It's important not to cut back into old wood however, as it won't regrow from this.

The downside to lavender is that it has a limited lifespan. Annual pruning as described above is a must to keep it bushy, but even with the most judicious care the plants will likely need to be replaced after years. It's a good opportunity to try out a different variety however — I recently dug out an old tired lavender of uncertain parentage from my garden and replaced it with 'Munstead', which has slightly more greenish leaves.