Lavender's Blue Dilly Dilly

Excuse me if I repeat myself but I am a creature of habit and at this time of the year, we need to cut back the lavender growing in our garden.

Well, actually, we’re a little earlier than usual this year, thanks to the heatwaves we’ve been experiencing here in this part of the world. Under “normal” circumstances, we’d be following the advice given to us by the lavender nursery who supplied our plants and cutting them back to 8 inches on August the 8th. Easy to remember! But this year, either the lavender had been blown over or trampled upon by someone -possibly a deer- looking for a drink of water and it was certainly time to get out there with the scissors.

I gathered a bag full, leaving the rest - the most difficult to reach! - to the expert to manage with his long reach shears. He won’t collect it in a bag for further use, but simply put it into the compost. I had far more purposeful intentions, needless to say.

The first job is always to clean the stems of leaves and any side shoots, trimming off any woody bits which might make it tricky to work with. It’s a pleasant task to complete whilst sitting in the garden on a sunny afternoon and of course, the lavender not only smells lovely but has a very calming effect too.

The intended outcome for these lavender stems is lavender rattles; a great way of preserving the scent whilst avoiding the inevitable mess that comes as soon as those lavender springs begin to drop their flowers all over the place. More rattle posts can be found here (including how to make one) and here with the added bonus of The Proclaimers!

As usual, I simply have to use every last scrap. These stems were too short to make rattles and would make way too much mess if brought indoors, so for now, we have a vase on the garden table (and a huge bowl of buds/flowers ready for lavender bags too. Of course, throughout all of this, I have one nursery rhyme playing in my head…