I know this is the wrong time of year to be planting in my climate. The night temps have been hovering around 20 degrees, but are expected to get up to 30 degrees next week. The day temps have had a high of 60 degrees … that’s for about two hours, but they are expected to drop to the low 50s next week.
The story of how I found myself planting lavenders at the end of November is below.
The question is that when I cut the top growth back to be more in proportion to the root mass, I found that the center of the plants is mostly congested woody material. I didn’t see any plant nodes. Do I need to prune out more of this woody material to make the plants more productive ?
The story ….
Sunday, my garden club had to pull up some plants where there is going to be some construction. We yanked three large lavenders out of the ground by tying a rope to the base of the plant and tying the rope to the trailer hitch of one of the member's cars. Of course the roots were butchered. The president of the garden club decided that we would just throw them away, then my wonderfully kind friend spoke up and said that they would look wonderful in my street bed. They stuffed the plants into the back of my SUV and I headed home to plant them ... no I didn't have time. I don't know anything about lavenders. I've never grown one.
The street bed was not prepared for any kind of planting. I had a yard of sandy loam under a tarp at one end of the bed and a pick-up load of rocks next to it for a raised bed I am planning to build. I was losing the light, so I didn't have time to prepare planting holes and ended up just putting the plants on top of the soil in the bed ... I did rake away the fallen leaves ... and covering the roots with some of the sandy loam. I finished working by flashlight to make sure all of the roots were covered . I do NOT believe I did that.
The next day I went out and cut back the top growth significantly because I knew it was too large for the butchered roots. I found that the plants are quite “woody” in the center which is why I am asking about the possibility of needing to prune out more of that wood.
Smiles,
Lyn
