Green-fingered Brits will be out in their gardens in force this weekend, with more warm weather forecast. But with that comes calls from experts urging gardeners not to feed their lavender plants. The Royal Horticultural Society shared advice on how to care for lavender, such as on watering.
They said: “If the plant is in a pot, it will need consistent watering in the summer, as there is a limited amount of soil to pull moisture from. But lavender is drought-tolerant, so if it’s in the ground, it rarely needs watering unless there are severe drought levels. And with deadheading, cut off spent blooms to encourage more to form. However, you can leave them in place towards the end of the flowering season as food for seed-eating birds such as goldfinches.”
But the society’s advice on feeding lavender might be surprising. It said to avoid it altogether.
They said: “Lavender likes soil that is quite low in nutrients, so plants don’t generally need feeding.”
If there are other plants in your garden that require feeding, consider using kitchen waste. Q.Wick Hose recommends saving vegetables and fruit peelings.
The site called them “the absolute pinnacles when it comes to assessing what kitchen waste acts as a good fertiliser”. They are packed with nutrients that will enrich your soil. And you don’t even have to make compost; simply planting them will do the trick.
Kelsey Lorencz, a registered dietitian nutritionist at Graciously Green Eats, told Homes & Gardens: “Vegetable peels and scraps break down and add nutrients like vitamin C and calcium to the soil, which makes them ideal for composting.
“If you don’t have a composting system, you can still reap the benefits of using vegetable peels in your garden to fertilise your plants and cut down on food waste.”
Dig a trench 10 inches deep in your soil and fill it with vegetable peels and scraps. “The smaller they are, the more quickly they will decompose to add nutrients to the soil,” the nutritionist said.