Content
- Only fertilize lavender carefully
- Prepare soil before planting
- Fertilize planted lavender once a year
- Topflavender needs more intensive care
- Tips & Tricks
Only fertilize lavender carefully
Again and again, the advice is to read, lavender must be fertilized every two weeks - preferably even with conventional flower fertilizer. This information - however widespread it is - is wrong. Lavender thrives in its Mediterranean home on very barren, often stony soils. Regular fertilization - especially with nitrogen-containing fertilizers - only ensures that the plant first appears to be growing magnificently, but then due to over-fertilization.
Prepare soil before planting
So that the lavender thrives in your garden, he needs the familiar from the home conditions. This includes, in addition to a sunny location, necessarily a permeable, preferably sandy soil. Even on stony ground, the plant grows well, which is why seedlings are often found in the cracks between paving stones. Heavy, loamy soils are not suitable for planting with lavender and should be improved according to the requirements. If you have such a garden floor, you can loosen it up with plenty of sand, expanded clay, broken bricks and the like. This is especially important for the drainage of rainwater, because lavender does not like waterlogging. Even acidic soils do not get the Mediterranean plant, which prefers an alkaline pH. But these substrates can usually be supplemented with rockwool or loam powder. You can also add a little compost or manure and lime into the soil before planting - unless you want to plant baby lavender, then do without the lime.
Fertilize planted lavender once a year
In principle, lavender planted in the garden needs to be fertilized a maximum of once or twice a year. The widely fanning and very deep roots of lavender bring enough nutrients out of the earth. Fertilize the garden lavender only at the beginning of the growing season - ie in March / April - with some lime and with a low-nitrogen fertilizer. Nitrogen - which is also in manure, guano and many commercially available flower fertilizers - only promotes the killing of the plant and should therefore be used as sparingly as possible. You should also refrain from mulching materials such as bark mulch, as this stores too much moisture. You can keep weedy weeds in check by placing the lavender in a pebble bed.
Topflavender needs more intensive care
In contrast to the garden lavender, the top-lavender needs a little more intensive care, which also includes more frequent watering (planted lavender does not have to be poured in principle) and occasional fertilizer. But even here you do not have to fertilize every two weeks, because usually one dose is sufficient at the beginning of the growing season and another in June / July. In addition, Topflavendel should be transplanted at least once a year into fresh substrate as well as into a larger bucket, so that the plant has sufficient space. Lavender, which is penned in a too small pot, often does not bloom or only very poorly.
Tips & Tricks
The roots of lavender need space and plenty of air. Keep the soil loose around the plant and weed weeds in time. In addition, you can bring pebbles or shell limestone on the ground - only not with Schopflavendel, this does not tolerate lime.
IJA