What Your Lavender Really Needs in April for a Dazzling Display – 5 Essential Tasks for the Longest Season of Fragrant Summer Blooms

Lavender is a popular perennial herb, beloved for its delicate purple flowers and intoxicating scent. It’s easy to grow, too, and very forgiving, thriving even in poor soil and with minimal moisture. Although lavender tolerates some neglect, you’ll get the most out of your plants with thoughtful spring care.

Lavender care in April is all about helping your plants wake up from winter dormancy and taking steps to ensure they have a great start to the growing season. From pruning to weeding and soil maintenance, now is the time to pamper your lavender. The effort you put in now will result in shapely, dense growth and an abundance of blooms later.

1. Clean up Lavender Beds and Pots

All plants benefit from a spring cleaning. Tackle this chore in April for lavender to keep beds tidy and to minimize the risk that fungal spores hiding in debris will infect your plants. Clear away any old plant material that has accumulated around the bases of the lavender plants. This includes dead growth, leaves, twigs, stems, and old decaying mulch.

Mulching can be useful for protecting lavender roots and crowns from cold in winter, especially in colder climates. But any mulch that holds in moisture can cause issues during the growing season. Pull away protective winter mulch to let the plants get some air and dry out. You can add inorganic mulch around plants to help promote drainage. Use gravel or crushed stones for this purpose, like this pea gravel from Walmart.

2. Spring Pruning

Lavender doesn’t strictly need to be pruned every spring. The plants grow strong and sturdy even in the absence of regular pruning. However, a careful April trim will benefit the plants and help them look tidier and grow less woody and leggy. Do this task right, and you’ll also get more flowers in summer.

The most important thing to remember when pruning lavender in April is: easy does it. April is the time for light trimming, not a heavy pruning session. Remove any stems that look like they got damaged over the winter. Then, trim lightly to shape each plant into a rounded mound. Avoid cutting into the woody growth, which won’t regenerate. Instead, make cuts just above new spring growth on fresher stems.

This light trimming session promotes branching, so you’ll get denser, fuller growth throughout the summer. Extra branches also mean more flowers. If you need some new pruners, then Fiskars' Bypass Pruners are highly rated and excellent value for money.

3. Make Soil Amendments as Needed

April is a good time to ensure your lavender plants are growing in appropriate soil conditions. Lavender grows best in dry soil. Drainage is essential, as soggy roots are the number one killer of lavender plants. Use this time to check your plants for any signs that the soil is retaining too much water:

• Soil that stays wet for a while after snow melt or rain
• Yellowing leaves
• Wilted or limp growth
• Signs of rot in roots, including soggy, mushy, or stinky roots

If you are concerned about moisture, spend some time amending the soil to improve drainage. You can gently dig around the plants to remove some of the heavy soil and to mix in grit, sand, or small gravel.

You might also be tempted to add compost or fertilizer in April, which is beneficial for many plants waking up from winter sleep. This is not the case for lavender. It actually grows better in poor soil. Fertilizer now will promote a lot of leafy growth, but this can hinder flower growth later.

4. Start Weeding

Weeds are inevitable, no matter what you do to try to prevent their growth. Some gravel or stone mulch will help keep them down, but expect weeds to grow regardless. Early management of weeds is essential for keeping them under control. An abundance of weeds is a messy look, but it’s also a situation that can take moisture and nutrients away from your garden plants, compromising their growth and health. Weeds can also harbor and spread disease and pests.

April is an ideal time to start weeding. It can be an onerous chore, but starting now means they’re easier to pull and they won’t fill in so much of the space later. Focus on pulling weeds from the root zones of your lavender plants, but do so gently and carefully, avoiding damaging the lavender’s shallow roots. Grandpa's Weeder makes it easy to target each weed, without having to bend down.

5. Propagate for More Lavender

All of the above steps will help you enjoy more flowers on your existing lavender plants, but another way to get more is to propagate. Spring is the best time to take softwood cuttings. With a little patience, you’ll have new lavender plants at no extra cost.

Take cuttings of soft stems, not the woody stems. Cuttings should be at least three inches (7.5 cm) long. Remove the bottom leaves and put the cut end into moist potting medium. While not strictly necessary, dipping the cut end in rooting hormone first will promote faster root growth – like this Garden Safe TakeRoot.

Cover the cutting with plastic and set it in a warm area with bright, indirect light. Once you have several roots growing, remove the plastic and move the pot to a sunnier location. After a few weeks, it should be ready to be transplanted outside. Pot the cuttings on in this Soil Sunrise Lavender Potting Soil Mix.

Lavender April Essentials

Lavender is known for thriving on neglect, but the plants do welcome intentional and thoughtful care in April to support breaking winter dormancy and starting healthy, new growth. A little attention in April goes a long way toward a summer full of fragrant blooms.