Lavender will 'flower beautifully' for 15 years if you do gardening expert's 1 simple task

Lavender remains a garden favourite thanks to its stunning blooms and soothing fragrance, and proves remarkably straightforward to maintain provided it receives proper pruning at the correct time. Trimming lavender during early autumn proves crucial to prevent the plant from becoming unruly whilst encouraging it to redirect energy from wilting flowers towards producing spectacular displays the following year.

Alexandra Campbell, gardening expert and creator of The Middlesized Garden, claimed that the "absolutely best way" to prune lavender involves cutting it back severely to achieve more robust flowering. She said, "I used to prune my lavender rather warily. I was too frightened I'd kill it. But when I followed this advice, from 2010 to 2014, my lavender sprawled. It became leggy and never looked as good as my neighbour's lavender.

"But there are always different views and different ways of doing things. I now cut my English lavender back hard. And it comes back looking good year after year."

How to prune lavender

According to Alexandra, numerous myths surround proper lavender pruning techniques, which she warned can result in plants becoming "leggy and woody".

She said: "When you read instructions on how to prune English lavender, you'll always see: 'never cut lavender back to the wood'. That's because lavender doesn't regenerate from old wood. Sometimes you'll be told to leave about one-third of the new green growth. Or 'trim lightly'."

English lavender should ideally be trimmed down to about nine inches high, leaving just a few green shoots on the brown stems.

Alexandria advised: "This exposes tiny buds to the sunlight so they can spring up, almost from the base of the plant. And although the plants looked quite brown, they plumped up with new foliage in a few months. They made elegant grey mounds for the winter garden.

"If you prune English lavender back hard, you create these neat sculptural mounds in winter. It adds to the winter structure."

Alexandria shared that her lavender, now 15 years old, has "flowered beautifully" and remains a "brilliant blue", thanks to her not being afraid to prune it back hard.

It's crucial to use sharp, clean secateurs and only prune once the lavender flowers have faded and turned grey.

The best time to prune lavender is when there are no pollinators, such as bees or butterflies, hovering around the stalks.

According to Alexandria, it's perfectly fine to cut into the lavender wood, but avoid cutting into the buds as this could prevent the plant from growing back.

She explained: "Look closely at your plant. You will see tiny blue-grey shoots. They are just little dots, often almost at the bottom of the stem. You do need to cut just above those tiny shoots, because if you cut the lavender down below them, it won't regenerate. It will probably die."

"So take a good thick bunch of lavender in one hand. Chop down to just above where you see those tiny little lavender shoots in the brown wood."