I’ve got two giant lavender plants beside my front walkway. Well, completely obscuring my front walkway. They got monstrously huge, about three feet tall and bushed out to at least three feet in diameter. This is their second year.
How can I best trim it back and/or split it to give some away? I’m going to move them, too, to a place they’ll be able to stay bigger and not be in the way, but I don’t want to kill them by cutting/digging at the wrong time. They’re flowering now (and attracting bloody swarms of bees, didn’t expect that)… do I wait till they’re done flowering? Do I have to wait till the fall?
Advice I have read says to prune lavender in the A months – April and August. Since yours is only on the second year, I’d think you could wait until August.
My problem was I let it go a couple years longer than I should and the damn thing grew woody and split. It looked terrible and I hacked it back to a stump. It grew back of course, but one half never quite recovered and it continued to look awful for a year or two, until I finally just removed the pathetic half. It looks so-so now, mainly because the better half ended up too close to the walk.
I love lavender and I’m annoyed at myself for letting my terrific bush get in this state. (I do have somewhat of an excuse, though; I moved into this house when my youngest was but three weeks old and I was lucky to merely vacuum the house, much less do any gardening!)