Growing lavender

[MandaElaine]

I am interested in growing lavender from seed. However, I have heard that it is a bit temperamental. Becuase of this, I have avoiding starting the seeds that I purchased. Is it worth starting from seed, or should I plan to buy established plants from my local nursery? Any advice or experiences would be greatly appreciated!

 

[ChanellG]

Lavender takes a while to mature and start producing flowers. I grew lavender once and it was doing well and then I moved to a new place where it got too much sun, dried up and died (along with some other plants). I started some from seed last year and it was doing great until I got busy and started slacking up on the daily watering. About half of the tiny little plants have perished. I'd say it's worth it, but you can't even skip a day watering or you could have problems.

 

[MandaElaine]

Thank you for sharing your experience. I think I will start my seeds under a grow light inside. Hopefully I can baby them until they are ready to go outside!

 

[Arzosah]

Respect! To both of you - I'm absolutely dreadful at growing from seed, I have to buy plug plants at the very least, or get gifted from family that have split clumps of plants. And I love lavender, too - I've seen it sold as a herb, to use in things like rice pudding, or even on bread, like poppy seeds.

 

[ChanellG]

I didn't do anything special when I started the seeds. I just left them on a window sill and waited to see if they would sprout. The only thing I would do differently if sprouting some again is plant them individually. I would use little paper cups or something like a paper egg carton so that I wouldn't have to separate them.

I started out with over a dozen plants, but I have maybe half left right now. They require a lot of regular watering and sometimes circumstances cause me to slack up. As soon as winter is gone for good I'm going to transplant them outdoors someplace that gets a little shade.

 

[MandaElaine]

Did you cold stratify the seeds? I think that is what has intimidated me! I've never cold stratified seeds before, and I am worried that I will do something wrong and lose all of them.

 

[ChanellG]

Nope. I just put them in dirt and watered them. I did this in August though, so maybe it was warm enough? Then again I did it indoors, even though the seeds sat on a window sill. I ordered a little kit to grow a venus flytrap and the instructions were so complicated for germinating I never tried for just the reasons you described. I've been wondering if the seeds were still viable and thinking of giving it a shot with out all that cold temperature stuff.

 

[MandaElaine]

If it worked for the lavender, it's probably worth trying with the venus flytrap! Since you had success with the lavender, I think I will try it for myself. After all, I don't have anything to lose! Thanks for sharing your experience!

 

[ChanellG]

You're right, we don't have anything to lose. If nothing else, it will be a learning experience. I'll have to dig around and see where the kit is and try and see if I can get a plant going. Maybe I'll even stick the seed(s) in the fridge for a bit. It worked for the garlic, even though my indoor plants didn't make it and the ones I put outside were drowned by winter rain after limping along.

 

[LabyrinthHill]

ChanellG is absolutely right about the cold treatment; seeds kept at 50-68 F for 16 hours then at 86F for 8 hours will have a better chance. Growing lavender from seed can be quite a challenge. The seed must be fresh for best results.

For consistent plant characteristics, I always recommend to my students to purchase plugs or 4" pots to save money and save heartache over trying to start from seed with unreliable results!

This information is from an article I wrote on growing lavender from seed for my website.

 

[ech77]

Lavender seed sometimes need a cold moist treatment to germinate, but that depends on the variety you have. I believe french lavender is the easiest to start. I just started 2 other varieties besides french (english and czech) and I am posting the pictures of their development on my blog http://aegarden.blogspot.com/ . All I really did was make sure the soil was moist, and put them in the garden window during the day, and the fridge at night.

 

[Omeganon]

[

Lavender takes a while to mature and start producing flowers. I grew lavender once and it was doing well and then I moved to a new place where it got too much sun, dried up and died (along with some other plants). I started some from seed last year and it was doing great until I got busy and started slacking up on the daily watering. About half of the tiny little plants have perished. I'd say it's worth it, but you can't even skip a day watering or you could have problems.

Hi CannelG.. I ordered 2000 heirloom Vera lavender sprouts and planted them indoors. The have begun sprouting but it looks like 3 completely different sprouts are growing. Why would this happen?QUOTE="ChanellG, post: 6400, member: 199"]Lavender takes a while to mature and start producing flowers. I grew lavender once and it was doing well and then I moved to a new place where it got too much sun, dried up and died (along with some other plants). I started some from seed last year and it was doing great until I got busy and started slacking up on the daily watering. About half of the tiny little plants have perished. I'd say it's worth it, but you can't even skip a day watering or you could have problems.[/QUOTE]

 

[Omeganon]

Lavender seed sometimes need a cold moist treatment to germinate, but that depends on the variety you have. I believe french lavender is the easiest to start. I just started 2 other varieties besides french (english and czech) and I am posting the pictures of their development on my blog http://aegarden.blogspot.com/ . All I really did was make sure the soil was moist, and put them in the garden window during the day, and the fridge at night.

Hi ech 77 I ordered 2000 heirloom Vera lavender sprouts and planted them indoors. The have begun sprouting but it looks like 3 completely different sprouts are growing. Why would this happen?

 

[alexiskilgannon]

I feel like growing from seed is hard regardless of the plant. I have never had any good luck with growing from seed, except for corn. I think that if you're willing to take good care of the plant and have the time to tend to it, I would grow from seed. You will love and appreciate the hard work you put into the plant in the future. There's nothing wrong with buying it and planting the already grown plant as well.

 

[ChanellG]

[

Hi CannelG.. I ordered 2000 heirloom Vera lavender sprouts and planted them indoors. The have begun sprouting but it looks like 3 completely different sprouts are growing. Why would this happen?

My guess would be that it has something to do with the sprouts being "heirloom." 2000 is a lot of sprouts! May I ask what you plan on doing with all those plants? Have you been in touch with the company you ordered them from?