Pink Perfume Lavender Perfect for Small Yards

The Pink Perfume Lavender Plants are certain to make a show in your yard all summer long. Plant along your front sunny walk way and the Pink Perfume Lavender will greet your guests with its wonderful fragrance. Separate areas of your garden with a low growing hedge of Lavandula angustifolia 'Pink Perfume'. 

The Pink Perfume is perfect for small yards, container gardens, cut flower gardens, and butterfly gardens. Use the rosy pink flower stems as cut flowers or dry for potpourris. Plant in well drained soil. The Pink Perfume Lavender is drought tolerant and blooms from May to September. Pink Perfume attracts bees, butterflies and hummingbirds to your garden.

Phenomenal Lavender Proves to Be Cold Hardy

Introduced in 2012, the Phenomenal Lavender will prove to be one of the hardiest lavenders available. Lavendula x intermedia 'Phenomenal' does not experience winter die back as seen in varieties such as Munstead and Hidcote. With its proven winter survival, the Phenomenal Lavender is hardy as far north as zone 4, which is unusual for lavender plants.

Phenomenal Lavender was named a 'Must Grow Perennial' for 2013 by Better Homes and Gardens.

The uniform mounded shape of the Phenomenal provides a silvery base for the late spring to early summer blooms of deep blue to purple. Growing 12 to 32 inches tall with a spread of 24 to 32 inches, this hardy new lavender variety will stand up to dry, moist and well drained soils. 

• Resists crown rot, downy and powdery mildews
• Deer resistant
• Rabbit resistant
• Heat tolerant
• Humidity tolerant

Great uses for the Phenomenal Lavender:

• Garden borders
• Low hedges
• Winter interest
• Containers
• Cut flowers
• Attracts butterflies, bees and hummingbirds
• Medicinal
• Culinary
• Fragrant

The Phenomenal and other lavender plants are available at GreenwoodNursery.com.

Lavender brings fragrant history to your garden

Today we’ll take a look at a very old plant with a long and storied history, but one that deserves a fragrant place in your garden.


Lavender was definitely familiar to early Pilgrims arriving in America in the 1600s, and no doubt it helped to mask some of the less pleasant odors during their long sea voyages. But growing and using lavender goes back much further than that.


The word lavender has its origin in the Latin word “lavare” meaning to wash and has many connections with the concept of cleansing. The ancient Phoenicians used lavender in their bath water and as an air freshener. Greeks were said to anoint their feet with lavender oil, no doubt as an early odor eater!


Egyptians were big fans of lavender and evidence has been found in excavated tombs to show that they used it as part of the mummification process. Wealthy Egyptians would wear a compress on their heads, made of lavender that would create a pleasant perfume as it warmed with their body heat.


Lavender has also been used for many hundreds of years as a healing and calming herb. Roman texts describe its use in treating everything from insect bites to stomach and kidney ailments. Queen Elizabeth I is said to have drank lavender tea to treat migraine headaches and that popularized the rapid growth of lavender farms in England.


Growing lavender in the USA is not difficult and will reward you with the delightful sight and smell of this revered plant, even if you don’t plan to anoint your feet with its oil. However, note that lavender will NOT grow in highly humid areas such as south Florida. If you live in USDA zone 5 or further north, you probably won’t get a lush thick lavender hedge as you would in more temperate areas, but lavender is a hardy perennial and will bloom anew in the spring.


If you’d like to see a brief video that Cheryl made with tips for growing lavender, you can find it on YouTube at http://www.youtube.com/user/GreenwoodNursery


Ready to enjoy your own lavender? Try these…


Lavender Provence


A beautiful addition to any garden path, container, or border plant, it has a strong fragrance and is long blooming. The Provence Lavender is a Lavandin variety which refers to the hybrid lavenders commonly grown in France and cultivated for the oil and dry buds. A wonderful attraction for bees, butterflies and hummingbirds,.the du Provence Lavender has pale blue to purple blooms, growing to two foot with a two foot spread. Zones 6 to 9.


Lavender Grosso


The most fragrant of all the lavenders, Grosso Lavender is a hybrid variety commonly grown in France and used in scenting perfumes and making sachets. An abundance of long spikes of deep violet flowers standing well above the grey/green compact foliage makes the Grosso a remarkable addition to any garden. Additionally, the Grosso is the most cold-hardy of the French hybrid lavenders. Zones 6 to 9.


Lavender Hidcote Blue


If you’re looking for a lower-growing lavender variety, try this one. Hidcote Blue, a.k.a. lavender angustifolia, is a free flowering dwarf variety that produces deep purple flower spikes in late spring and summer. Lavender Hidcote Blue is great for a dwarf hedge, edging or for massing. As a famous English Lavender, the Hidcote’s blooms are distilled to provide one of the purest lavender scents. Zones 5 to 10.


Lavender Munstead


Munstead is a many-branched, somewhat woody, perennial that grows much like a small shrub. The narrow leaves of the Lavender Munstead are about 2 inches long and have a pleasing grey-green color. Munstead Lavender has small, heavily fragrant lavender flowers on long-stemmed, slender spikes. As a favorite English Lavender, the Munstead is a top choice for the edible buds. Zones 5 to 9.


Lavender grows best in rocky, dry, sunny places with an abundant amount of lime in the soil. The scent is strongest in dry, sunny locations. You can cut faded whole flower spikes when the first flowers begin to open, and then dry them for use in sachets in the home.

Butterfly bushes benefit from fall pruning

Today we have questions from several different parts of America… and even one from India!

QUESTION: “I planted some Rosa rugosas and butterfly bushes last spring. All are doing very well. My question is whether I need to prune these back before winter sets in. I live in Albany NY.” -- Gay Malin

ANSWER: The butterfly bushes can be pruned back once they go dormant. In fact I recommend cutting them back to about 6 inches for the first year and gradually giving them a bit more each year when pruning. The Rosa rugosas are best pruned in early spring, primarily for shaping and to cut out any dead branches or any that are touching or crossing each other.

QUESTION: “I am looking to create some privacy landscaping. What would you recommend for salt air? I would like a mixture of evergreens, crape myrtle and grasses. Not sure of the best evergreens for the seashore.” – Deborah Lukens

ANSWER: The evergreens you should use will depend largely on the Plant Hardiness Zone in which you live. If you are in zones 5 through 8, I would recommend Cedar Green Giants for the background of your privacy block, with crape myrtles, laurels or Rosa rugosas on the inside for all-summer color. Grasses and colorful perennials are also a good addition and can give a welcome look to a landscape.

As always I suggest that you sketch out a plan to get your ideas down on paper before you start the project. A background line of Green Giants and soft curving lines of color and texture on the inside will help to create a visually pleasing landscape.

QUESTION: “we have a camping site where sometimes snakes appear. Is there a chemical whose smell would keep the snakes and other reptiles away from the tents, or any method by which we can keep away the snakes?” --Rakesh Jain (Indore, India)

ANSWER: The best things we have always used are moth balls. There are products on the market, of course, but virtually all use the same ingredient found in common moth balls.

QUESTION: “I purchased a Japanese Red Maple sapling nine years ago. It had red leaves for several years, but the leaves have been green for the past two years. The tree is now 15 feet tall; beautiful, but green. How can I help the leaves turn red again, or can I?” – Michael Riley

ANSWER: There are several elements to consider here. First, take a look at the area around the tree to see if it has changed over the years. Japanese Red Maples need mostly full sun to stay red, otherwise they will revert back to green. Has anything been built near the tree causing it to be shaded or is another plant growing between it and the sun?

In some cases, using too much nitrogen rich fertilizer can cause the leaves to turn green. If you’ve been using fertilizer around the tree, you could try cutting back or stopping altogether in that vicinity.

QUESTION: “We planted lavender plants 3 years ago in our garden on the Eastern Shore, Maryland. Nothing happened the first year the plants stayed their original size (about 3"). The second year they started to grow and looked like we had achieved our goal. This year they were flourishing, fragrant and tall.

“Then one day they all just seemed to dry up and die. I'm not sure if they are dead at the root or what happened. It has been hot and dry then wet with high amounts of rain. Should I start over or leave them?” – Janice Enright

ANSWER: The same problem with lavender happened to us too. Lavender is a Mediterranean plant and does not do well with a lot of water. After some trial and error, we have been able to keep ours flourishing by having a sand bed underneath for drainage. We never water, and you should never fertilize. This is the only way we have found to grow it successfully.