PLANT FINDER

Other Names:  English Lavender, Lavandin

Description:

Striking bluish-purple blooms covering slightly taller stems sets this cultivar apart; lovely gray green foliage is beautifully fragrant; excellent for borders, containers, and massing in the garden; used for sachets and perfumes

Ornamental Features

Grosso Lavender has masses of beautiful spikes of fragrant lavender flowers rising above the foliage from mid to late summer, which are most effective when planted in groupings. The flowers are excellent for cutting. Its attractive fragrant needle-like leaves are grayish green in color. The foliage often turns coppery-bronze in fall.

Landscape Attributes

Grosso Lavender is a dense herbaceous evergreen perennial with a mounded form. It brings an extremely fine and delicate texture to the garden composition and should be used to full effect.

This is a relatively low maintenance plant, and is best cleaned up in early spring before it resumes active growth for the season. It is a good choice for attracting butterflies to your yard, but is not particularly attractive to deer who tend to leave it alone in favor of tastier treats. It has no significant negative characteristics.

Grosso Lavender is recommended for the following landscape applications;

• Mass Planting
• Border Edging
• General Garden Use
• Container Planting

Planting & Growing

Grosso Lavender will grow to be about 24 inches tall at maturity, with a spread of 24 inches. Its foliage tends to remain dense right to the ground, not requiring facer plants in front. It grows at a slow rate, and under ideal conditions can be expected to live for approximately 10 years. As an evegreen perennial, this plant will typically keep its form and foliage year-round.

This plant should only be grown in full sunlight. It prefers dry to average moisture levels with very well-drained soil, and will often die in standing water. It is considered to be drought-tolerant, and thus makes an ideal choice for a low-water garden or xeriscape application. It is not particular as to soil type, but has a definite preference for alkaline soils, and is able to handle environmental salt. It is highly tolerant of urban pollution and will even thrive in inner city environments. This particular variety is an interspecific hybrid.

Grosso Lavender is a fine choice for the garden, but it is also a good selection for planting in outdoor pots and containers. It can be used either as 'filler' or as a 'thriller' in the 'spiller-thriller-filler' container combination, depending on the height and form of the other plants used in the container planting. It is even sizeable enough that it can be grown alone in a suitable container. Note that when growing plants in outdoor containers and baskets, they may require more frequent waterings than they would in the yard or garden.