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Herb of the Week for 14th December
Bumbling Along To Summer
By Lynn Kirkland
It is such a delightful time at the herb
farm at the moment. The air is alive with
fragrant scents and contented humming
and birds singing joyfully.
The roses have surpassed themselves this
year with such an abundance of blooms
and the heat is releasing the gorgeous
scents for our pleasure.
Lavenders are also flowering prolifically.
If you have them in your garden at the
stage you see in the photo this is the
time to cut them if you want to dry them.
Hang bunches upside down in an airy warm
place. Do not dry them in direct sunlight
or you will lose colour and fragrance.
Harvesting them now will allow the bush
to produce another flush of flowers and
keep the bush tidy.
If you have planted new lavenders then
it pays to trim off the first couple of
attempts at flowering so the bush forms
in a sturdy and compact manner. If you
fail to do this the bush grows leggy and
you will not get the years from it that
prudent pruning produces.
The other lovely aspect of lavender in
the garden is that it attracts pollinators
like bumbles and bees to visit your garden.
I find that bees which gather nectar from
lavender are quite peaceful and even move
along quietly when I pick bunches of flowers.
Our pink lavender is blooming too and
this is a curiosity to some people and
traditionalists insist that lavender must
be purple or it is not proper lavender.
Margaret Brownlow wrote this about lavender.
"My garden will have tranquil lavender.
Blue, mauve and pink, musical with bees
to line my paths."
Yes lavender is evocative of the long
hazy, lazy days ahead.
Thanks
lynn another great read. Visit
The HerbFarm Website:
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