How to Grow Lavender Indoors

Lavender is an easy to grow herb and will adapt well to most indoor conditions. If it isn't growing in your home, you're missing out on the everything-lavender craze.

This herb has so many benefits it's hard to decide whether to use it in baking a sweet bread or to add elegance to a hot bath.  Indecision is perfectly ok because just by sitting in its pot, lavender will fill your home with fragrance and beauty.

• Never compromise on your potting soil for any plant or you will have a fish out of water quandary. Putting a plant in the wrong soil is a lot like exchanging money in a foreign country; you're bound to lose a few. To avoid losing your beautiful new lavender plant, add lime and sand to a high quality potting mix.

• This lovely herb loves to spread and most indoor growing ventures go wrong with this herb when it's put in a too small pot for it spreading root system. Check that the root ball has several inches of pot room but not so much more as lavender demands its soil be on the drier side.

• A clay pot will ensure that the soil dries out nicely for this arid herb. The pot must also be large enough to accommodate a 1-2 inch layer of gravel at the bottom or you will end up with root rot. Don't attempt to use a shallow pot.

• Lavender is a bit of a show off and likes the attention afforded by a sunny windowsill. Never put this herb in a corner, it simply will not tolerate anything but a day of bright sunlight.

• Lavender is neither a sipper nor a hardy drinker. It will not tolerate frequent watering nor a soggy environment. Let the soil become just dry to the touch then give it a good watering before leaving it to dry again.

• Never mist the foliage and avoid getting it wet when watering.

• Native of the Mediterranean, lavender can enjoy the warm temperatures in most homes. Just don't put it directly next to a heat source and check the soil more often if your home is very warm.

• Perhaps hypnotized by its own scent, lavender will quickly fail in a stuffy or smoke filled home. If not too cold for humans,  give it a bit of fresh outdoor air a time or two per week and especially if there is a light breeze.

• Despite it aromatic beauty, lavender is a hardy dessert plant and was born to wander. It can grow one to three feet tall and endless feet wide. Once your plant has reached the limits of its pot, put it out in the garden or prune it heavily (and cut back the root ball if necessary) rather than continue its confinement.

• Use a general purpose fertilizer sparingly just once or twice at the most in the growing season. Give your herb a nicely ground up eggshell a few times per year for an extra limey treat.

• Lavender is too fragrant for most pests but, while outdoors, an occasional caterpillar may dine on the leaves. Other than root rot, your herb is safe from all creatures except the over mothering or neglectful human.

French lavender is usually recommended for growing indoors. You will recognize this variety by its serrated leaves. However, it is the least aromatic of the three varieties; English and Spanish being the other two.

So if you're set on having the most fragrance possible, choose English first then Spanish. At some point, you will have to give them up the great outdoors but if you lack an outdoors planting area, with care you can at least enjoy a temporary relationship.

Should you want a more permanent relationship with your lavender, go with the French and summer it on a patio. Unless you live in Florida, this variety will not survive a winter outdoors so bring it back in with the first chill of fall.