Lavender For The Outdoors
Apart from the fact that many of the uses of lavender can be and are accessed outdoors as well as inside, there are a few special applications that do not apply to home or person. In the car, we offer two different approaches to “lavenderizing” the vehicle’s micro-environment, one using the simplest approach of buds-in-a-bag and the other more potent approach of oil-on-a-pad. In the garden, yard or even farm, our “Algae Inhibitor™” is a unique variant on what was long a well-kept secret – a simple completely organic means of keeping algae from growing in ponds and troughs.
Of course, the most widely found use for lavender outdoors as a floral decorative element is as a landscape flower. The many many varieties – over 400 at most recent count – lend themselves to endless options in small or large gardens. Depending on local climatic conditions, varieties can be selected to flower for much of the year.
On our farm and in our demonstration gardens on San Juan Island we have more than fifty varieties blooming from early April to November – “Spanish” (stoechas or pedunculata varieties with their large characteristic “rabbit ear” petals – to the “English” (angustifolia) varieties that bloom from May to August and the “French” (intermedia) varieties that bloom from July through October.