After cutting, I put the cuttings right into the ground in their place in the prepared planting beds.
How do you cut the lavender cuttings?
First of all with good pruning scissors that cut the cuttings, but do not squeeze them. Ideal are cuttings that first have a piece of wood and then new material. It is important that you don’t cut under the green of the plant. Make sure there are some leaves and preferably some new spout under where you cut.
Then I prune the whole plant back into shape, a kind of hairdressing it is. It is important that you prune generously, but not too generously, to prevent bald branches from forming. With the pruning in spring you often also cut away the first tiny flowers. That’s no problem, there will be many more in return.
Preparing lavender cuttings
Immediately after cutting the cuttings I select the strongest. Per lavender species this can be quite different. The photos of the cuttings on this page are from a Provence lavandin. With long somewhat thinner leaves. Other species seem more robust.
The branches with wood often have offshoots that you can tear off the wood. It is said that that works well. In my trial latest autumn I have put every type of cutting in the ground, with wood, without wood, torn from wood, thin, thick, big, small. And it all worked. At least on land, right in the ground under a shadow tunnel. In pots, all the results were less good. In every case you let only the leaves at the upper part stay. The rest you take off carefully.
I also experimented with growth hormones to baptize the cuttings, but that didn’t make any difference in my case. So I stopped that.
PH value cutting soil
Soil should not contain nutrients, but I could not find anything about the desired PH value for lavender cuttings. This spring I prepared the beds with half the lime I normally give to the lavender plants. If anybody knows about the best PH for lavender cutting I would love to hear it.
Watering the cuttings
I find lavender cuttings in pots pretty awkward myself. The soil should be moist, but not too wet. When it rains heavily they are too wet right away. And with sunshine and no rain they are too dry very soon. I watered the cuttings on land every two days in times of no rain. A larger amount of soil is a good buffer for water, but also for draining too much water.
Shade cloth with 70% UV filter
A shade cloth that lets some sun through, but not too much seems to work well in my case. I still have to see if the cuttings like it in the summer. The Spanish sun can be merciless. The autumn cuttings are from after the summer and also the new spring cuttings haven’t seen summer yet. If necessary I stretch a double cloth.
I hope to be able to plant the autumn cuttings in their final spot in May. And the spring cuttings in the autumn, after about 7 months. But most of all I look at what they look like. The stronger ones go first.
Update april 2022:
Now I take cuttings in early April and plant out the young plants in November. That works best for me. The plants have more time to take root before they flower in June the following year. Even frost does not harm them. At the beginning of the winter of 2020, we suddenly and unexpectedly had frost, minus 8 degrees Celcius. That is very unusual where I live. I feared the worst for the young plants, but they are all doing very well and even better than those planted in the spring.
