Growing Lavender: A Complete Profile

By Growing Home Greens Team · July 29, 2026

Lavender is grown as much for its fragrance and pollinator appeal as for culinary use, and it’s one of the few herbs on this site where getting the soil conditions right matters more than getting the timing right.

Which type to plant

Nurseries sell lavender under a lot of names, and not all of them are suited to an ordinary garden bed. ‘Munstead’ and ‘Hidcote’ are both English lavenders (Lavandula angustifolia), the group most tolerant of cold and humidity, and either is a reasonable default. ‘Munstead’ has plain green foliage, lighter blue-purple flowers, and blooms slightly ahead of ‘Hidcote’. ‘Hidcote’ has silver-gray foliage, darker purple flowers, and a more compact habit. Pick on looks and bloom timing rather than worrying about hardiness, since both perform well across the same range. Hybrid types like ‘Grosso’ (a lavandin) grow bigger and are prized for oil production, but they’re less cold-hardy and a poorer fit for a home herb bed.

Starting a plant

Lavender is almost always grown from a nursery start or a rooted cutting rather than seed. Seed germination is slow and unreliable, and many named cultivars don’t come true from seed anyway. Set transplants out about a week after your last frost, and expect around 100 days to a full first flush of bloom. It needs full sun and sharp drainage above almost everything else; heavy or consistently damp soil is a bigger threat to lavender than cold ever is.

What goes wrong

Root rot from wet feet is the most common way to lose a lavender plant, almost always from soil that holds too much moisture rather than from cold or pests. If drainage is a concern in your yard, a raised bed or a mound of well-draining soil is worth the extra step. Established plants are otherwise low-maintenance and drought-tolerant.

Where to put it

Lavender planted near cabbage is reputed to help repel moths, aphids, and whiteflies from nearby brassicas. See the full companion guide for lavender. Given its need for sharp drainage, place it at a bed’s driest, sunniest edge in the Garden Designer rather than mixed in with moisture-loving vegetables.

Sources: Lavender, Illinois Extension.

Companion planting guide for Lavender · Find your planting dates

Typically viable in USDA zones 5-10. Not sure your zone? Look it up by ZIP code.

Method: Buy as a start: Buy as a nursery start and transplant outside. Lavender is slow or unreliable from seed, so most gardeners skip seed-starting it entirely.

See exact start-indoors, direct-sow, and harvest dates for your zone →

How many Lavender plants fit per square foot?

Spacing: 1 per square foot (square-foot-gardening spacing). Mature height: 1-2.5 ft.

Varieties worth considering

• 'Munstead' or 'Hidcote' (Lavandula angustifolia): Illinois Extension lists both as compact English lavenders bred for exactly the conditions most home gardens can offer. 'Munstead' has green foliage and lighter lavender-blue flowers and blooms a little earlier; 'Hidcote' has silver-gray foliage and deeper purple flowers and stays more compact. Either is a safer bet than an unnamed seed packet, since named English cultivars are the ones best suited to garden zones 5 and up. (source)
• 'Phenomenal' (Lavandula x intermedia): Illinois Extension lists 'Phenomenal' as an extremely vigorous lavandin, highly tolerant of heat and humidity and resistant to common root and foliar diseases, tougher than either English cultivar in a humid climate. Choose it over Munstead or Hidcote specifically where summer humidity has killed lavender before. (source)

Cited from the source shown next to each variety. We haven't grown these ourselves yet, so treat this as a research-backed starting point, not a personal endorsement.

Where to buy lavender starts

Lavender is almost always bought as a nursery start rather than seeded. Check a local nursery or garden center; we haven't vetted online start/plant suppliers yet.

See it growing

Search YouTube for "growing lavender" videos → (a live search, not a hand-picked video; results vary and aren't vetted by us)

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Growing Lavender: A perennial herb that wants exactly the opposite of rich, moist garden soil: sun and sharp drainage are non-negotiable.

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