U-Pick bunches are always a favorite at any lavender festival. Use fresh cut flowers for making wands, or dry stems yourself for fabulous craft projects.
U-Pick bunches are always a favorite at any lavender festival. Use fresh cut flowers for making wands, or dry stems yourself for fabulous craft projects.
Harvesting Lavender
Whereas the French and English lavender farms that supply the perfume industry employ huge, mechanized equipment to cut lavender from the magnificent fields of blue, home gardeners and small flower and herb farms use small hand shears or scythes to cut the spikes from their plants. In that way, home gardeners have an advantage, because not every spike on a plant ripens at the same time. We can be selective in harvesting, cutting a bit one week, more the next, for optimal timing.
Cut when the spike has achieved full color and the first bud is starting to open. The flower will turn brown when it dries, so the spike will have better color if cut in the bud stage.
Cut spikes for drying when all the dew is off the flowers; midafternoon is a good time for the lavender. If that doesn’t fit your schedule, cut anytime when the flowers are dry. How long to cut the stem depends on the use you have in mind. Cut down to near the bottom of the plant, including leaves, which also are fragrant, if you want a full bouquet to hang or you need long stems for a craft. The danger here is that you may also cut off some incipient flower buds that would mature for a second harvest later in the summer. Cut down to the first leaf for most culinary purposes, if you want only buds for potpourri, or if you need only short stems for your craft designs.
Bunch the stems in small handfuls, bind with rubber bands, and hang with paper clips in a warm, dark, dry spot. As with any dried flower, the warmer, darker, and drier the atmosphere, the faster the bunch will dry and the better the color, fragrance, and flavor will be preserved.
The bunch will dry in about a week. When fully dried, pack away in a cardboard box, and seal until you are ready to use your harvest. The darkness will help keep the color from fading. For culinary lavender, seal first in a plastic bag to keep the dust off.
If you dry for decorative purposes, forget the pink and white lavenders. These colors that are lovely in the garden look dull and lifeless when dried. Forget L. multifida and L. stoechas, as the color is muddy. Buy plants with flowers of the deepest blue, like L. x intermedia ‘Dutch’ and L. angustifolia ‘Hidcote’ and ‘Royal Velvet’, or plants that produce the longest, straightest stems, like L. x intermedia ‘Grosso’ or ‘Provence’.
After cutting or buying your bundles, hang them in a warm, dark, dry spot so they’ll dry as quickly as possible.
I have never seen fresh lavender sold in the wholesale flower markets of New York or Philadelphia. I’ve never seen fresh lavender sold in a florist shop, or even in a farm stand, and yet it makes a lovely cut flower. Granted, the stems may be short, but a few handfuls picked in early bud will last for at least two weeks in a vase.
Cut the lavender early in the morning; dew is no problem to fresh flowers. Strip the bottom leaves, if any. Stand in water mixed with a commercial flower preservative according to package directions. You will have the joy of watching as the buds mature and the first flowers open, displaying a contrasting color to the buds. The fragrance is subtle, but as you walk by the vase, bruise a leaf or two to release more of the aroma.
Whether fresh or dried, lavender is a delightful flower to display in the home but is rather demanding in its usage. One principle I follow is to always use clusters of spikes in any design rather than using the stems singly. A single stem, though colorful and interesting if examined closely, gets lost surrounded by masses of other flowers.
Easy and Elegant Fresh Lavender
A large handful or two of cut fresh lavender in a crystal bowl needs no embellishment and sings its own praises by wafting a gentle aroma through the room. Sometimes, however, you have but a few stems of any one plant that you can spare from the garden. I love this small vase display because it works at almost any time of year, with different assortments of flowers and different numbers of containers. And even people untrained in floral design feel comfortable with the idea of shoving a few stems of a flower into a small vase. The late-spring display shown here features peonies, pansies, globe centaurea, bachelor’s buttons, yarrow, lamb’s ear, purple bellflower, delphinium, and a few roses.
Even in late November and after several killing frosts, I can cull a few late mums, some cotoneaster berries, the silver leaves of santolina, a brave stem of delphinium growing in a sheltered location, some candytuft in rebloom, and a clipping or two of golden arborvitae for color, each in its own little container.
Anyone can make a simple clustered arrangement. Fill small vases with any one species clipped from the garden.
For containers, you can use eggcups, candlestick holders, sherry glasses, demitasse, sake or tiny teapots, or any other small containers that hold water. To go even smaller, I’ve even grouped eggshells or clustered chemistry lab test tubes on stands. When the containers are so small, it’s important to top them up with water once or twice a day.
Easy and Elegant Dried Lavender
When using dried flowers and herbs, the number and assortment of potential containers increases dramatically. Without a water requirement, almost any object can be used to show off the flowers. The old baby shoes below reflect the delicacy of the small flower buds of ‘Dutch’ lavender spikes. The stems are cut shorter to stuff into the high-topped shoes.
Use unusual containers for dried materials.
You can use a fabric or crocheted bootie in the same way, dipping it first in fabric stiffener mixed according to package directions (available in craft shops). Stuff it lightly with waxed paper, and make sure it is standing upright on the sole so that it will hold its shape as it dries. A lineup of five or seven crocheted booties with lavender makes a delightful centerpiece for a baby shower, or you can give one to each guest as a party favor.
Freshly cut flowers, stems and leaves are ready for oil distillation at Jardin du Soleil.
A low bowl of fragrant flowers makes a perfect dining centerpiece, as it provides visual interest without interfering with the view of the guests around the table. When the lavender is budding and the flower spikes are ripening to full color, search the garden for other fragrant species. Do you have sweet peas, lily of the valley, or early roses? Gather whatever you have, along with other colorful blossoms. Condition the flowers by standing in a bucket of warm water for about ten hours. Then remove from the bucket and cut the stems short.
To help keep the flowers in place, make a grid with narrow adhesive tape or cellophane tape across the top of a china bowl. The bowl must be dry when you make the grid. Cross the bowl twice the long way and three times the short way. Make sure that the tape goes down the side of the bowl only about ½ inch so that it will not be visible when the leaves and flowers are in place. Edge the rim of the bowl with galax, ivy, or large violet leaves. Then add the other flowers in wild profusion.
