Border options - Lavender

Lavender is beautiful but can find our wet climate challenging. It needs extremely good drainage and pruning every autumn. I’ve lost many plants over the years unfortunately!

Something that looks very similar to lavender and copes far better with our climate and is virtually indestructible is catmint. It’s cheaper to build the stock as you can divide one plant into many and it has a very long flowering season compared to lavender.

This isn’t a great photo as it was taken early in the season but it spills out the entire length of our driveway from May till September. Some varieties are better from pollinators than others. I find the sterile seedless varieties aren’t as popular with bees.

I’ve had a visitor to the garden one day complimenting me on my lavender and nearly falling out with me when I said it was catmint.😂

You could also consider salvia OP. Also in relation to lavender, the English version is hardier than the French version so keep that in mind.

They are supposed to be attracted to it and we would have a lot of neighbourhood cats but never had an issue.

A nursery I use a lot online based in Co Claire is Caherhurley Nursery. Their stock is organic and I actually find their prices more reasonable than a lot of other places, win win. The couple who run it are lovely to deal with.

😅 Thanks! There’s usually lots of weeds, horsetail unfortunately the worst of them but it hasn’t taken hold much yet outside the beds. I hand pull weeds most of the season as I don’t like spraying but the other half insists on one spray a year to keep the horsetail at bay, which is fair enough. He’s also a dab hand with the rake every once and awhile.

There’s a good thick layer of 840 grit below it and no weed proof barrier. Chips are local to the area and they seem to never fade thankfully.