If you’ve got a lavender plant in the garden, you’ll know how brilliant they are. These striking purple flowers smell gorgeous, and pollinators such as bees and butterflies are huge fans, meaning they’re more likely to flock to your garden if you have one of these plants.
But like all garden plants, they need the right care in order to thrive. Michael the Mediterranean Gardener on TikTok recently shared one key task that all lavender owners should do in July, as now is the ‘perfect time’ for it. That task is propagating it from cuttings, and it’s so simple to do.
How to take lavender cuttings
In his video, Michael demonstrated exactly how to take cuttings from your lavender plant so you can start to grow them this way in preparation for next year.
Crouching down beside his plant, he said: “What we’re looking for in a candidate for a cutting is a nice, straight, healthy stem that doesn’t have any flower buds. We’re looking for something that is just starting to harden off.”
Focusing on a part of the plant with no buds, he continued: “If we look down, we can see the change in colour moving from green just going into that slightly woodier colour.”
However, he also warned not to cut too far down the stem, as this ‘won’t do anything’. Then, strip the stem of all its leaves, except for two or three ‘at the very top’.
Then, at the bottom of the stem where the leaf nodes were, use a sharp knife to cut this off.
How to propagate lavender
Now you’ve got your cutting, it’s time to propagate. Take a small tub and fill it with soil.
Then, place the lavender stem in between the soil and the very edge of the tub. Repeat this for as many cuttings as you have.
Michael said: “Mediterranean herbs don’t want to be too wet, so you want to spray this maybe once or twice a day, that’s more than enough.”
Pop the plant in a ‘sheltered but sunny’ spot, and once they start to grow new leaves, you know they’re ready to move into a larger pot.