Re: Lavender self seeding

At 08:46 AM 5/18/00 -0700, Nan Sterman wrote:
>Has anyone else had the experience of lavender self-seeding?  I have a 
>whole crop of lavender seedlings just downslope from where I had been 
>growing Spanish Lavender.  I've grown other lavenders and never had a one 
>self-seed but this one seems to have gone to town (not that I am complaining).
>
>Nan

Hi Nan -

Some Lavenders will occasionally self-seed, and often, when they do, they 
germinate several seedlings at once.  Hang on to as many of your seedlings 
as possible, and note them as seedlings for future review - there might be 
some interesting new forms among them.

I've planted a lavender garden at my son's school, which is looking better 
and better (good flowering this year!).  I chose various types of English 
Lavender (L. angustifolia) and hybrids close to that habit, as well as some 
Spanish (L. stoechas) and French (L. dentata), especially the green-leafed 
form of the latter.  From another garden, I transplanted a number of 
unwanted seedlings of a green leaf L. dentata into this school 
garden.  Some of them are not looking as if they might be hybrids between 
L. dentata and possibly L. x heterophylla - their spike is somewhat more 
elongate and have some florets spaced apart.  The terminal 'tuft' of bracts 
is also somewhat smaller than a typical L. dentata.  All of these seedlings 
look very similar in foliage and habit, it is only the flowers that are now 
looking somewhat different.  We'll see how it these develop in future.

I put a grey-leafed L. dentata into this planting and it seems to want to 
completely take over everything!  I've had to transplant out some other 
Lavenders so that they would not be overwhelmed by this guy!  His soft, 
wooly-grey foliage and consistent flowering are very attractive, and his 
voraciousness just adds more to the effect!

I recently came across a garden with a L. dentata whose flowers were very 
pale lavender.  I'll go back and take some cuttings to see if this will be 
the same in a sunnier garden elsewhere.  If anyone has cultivars of this 
handsome lavender, please let me know!  They are very seldom offered in the 
trade locally.  I've seen photos of pinkish and blue-white flowered 
types.  I'd love to create a planting of various types together to 
illustrate their differences.

Regards,
Sean O.

Sean A. O'Hara                       sean.ohara@groupmail.com
h o r t u l u s   a p t u s          710 Jean Street
'a garden suited to its purpose'     Oakland, CA 94610-1459, U.S.A.
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