old lavender bushes

[barnabebear]

Hi,

can anyone tell me if it's okay to cut old lavender bushes back realy hard, and I mean hard, back to old wood. They flowered great last year, so I don't want to loose them, but there just too high and obscure the view of the garden. I am re-planting new ones nearby but would hate to loose these ones, the butterflies on them this year were amazing. So has anyone cut lavender back that much and they survived?

Barnabebear.

[Alexis]

Normally, if you cut them back to the old wood, they die.  I just give mine a 'haircut' after flowering.  Couple of inches perhaps.

Lavender grows so quickly though that once the others have grown, you could replace the old ones and start as you mean to go on by trimming every year.....then they will never get too big, height wise at least.

[Pucette<P><FONT face="Times New Roman" size=3>Pucette<FONT><P><FONT face="Times New Roman" size=3><P class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0cm 0cm 0pt">"Qui ne connaît pas la campagne lhiver, ne connaît pas la campagne et ne connaît pas]

While common wisdom agrees with Alexis I have cut back big lavender bushes drastically without killing them, inspired by a neighbour in London who didn't know that it was unadvisable and whose big old bush survived; there is certainly a risk of killing them, to minimise this cut back in spring when the sap is rising and severe winter frost damage is no longer a risk.

[Dave&Olive]

 as cuttings from lavender are so easy to do take cuttings first, chop back the old ones if they die put in your new cuttings

[Millymollymandy]

I have cut back hard many an old lavender into the woody stems (sage too). The trick is to follow the stems back until you find tiny little dormant buds (they are tiny!). If you cut above these, they'll shoot. Did the same with a woody straggly old sage and in a couple of months it was back and fresh as a daisy! Never ever had a lavender die on me.

[barnabebear]

Thanks for the replies, I have taken everyones advice, I have taken cuttings, bought some new, and next spring will cut back the old bushes hard as Pucette says,when the saps rising. So just see what happens, thanks again.

Barnabebear