What's wrong with this Lavender?

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jpofsunya Staten Island, NY(Zone 6b) May 27, 2012

I am wondering why this plant is looking so disheveled. Any advice is greatly appreciated.

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ecrane3 Dublin, CA(Zone 9a) May 27, 2012

Your soil looks a bit on the heavy side, could be it's staying too wet. In your area lavenders need really good drainage to do well.

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jpofsunya Staten Island, NY(Zone 6b) May 27, 2012

thanks ecrane3. The soil is heavy, however, the lavender was planted in a soil mixture, made up mainly of pete and secondarily compost...

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ecrane3 Dublin, CA(Zone 9a) May 27, 2012

Did you just amend the planting hole, or did you amend a wide area of the bed around it (plus deeper down)? If you just amended a small area around the plant, you can get what I like to call the "clay pot" effect where it's basically like having the plant in a container with no drainage--the water will go down through the amended part, but then it will be really slow to drain out into the clay. So if the plant's roots have the misfortune to be near that border between the amended soil and the clay, they could be staying much too wet.

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jpofsunya Staten Island, NY(Zone 6b) May 31, 2012

ugh...moved it to a pot with a mix of mainly peat & perlite and it looks like it's still dying or is already dead.

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ecrane3 Dublin, CA(Zone 9a) May 31, 2012

I've found lavenders are sort of hard to save once they've been exposed to conditions they don't like and gotten into bad shape...it's worth giving it a chance still but I haven't had great luck when they get to this stage. Hope yours will make it though!

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plantfreak78 Rolesville, NC(Zone 7b) Jun 05, 2012

Aside from heavy soil, Lavenders like a neutral soil and peat is highly acidic. One of the many reasons I can't stand the stuff (peat moss, that is)...

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LhasaLover (Tammie) Odessa, TX(Zone 7b) Jun 05, 2012

Sorry, it looks like you lost that lavender. I live in West Texas and when I planted mine I still mixed in gravel and sand into the soil to make sure it was very loose and drained well. I planted them in slightly raised areas also ... they really do like it very well drained. I lost many of my lavenders over the years when we had wet winters but I still have 3 plants that have grown very large and are currently in bloom. Our soil is alkaline and the top soil is almost pure sand.

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