Lavender is a real bug-a-boo. My French one looks worse than that. The Spanish one is looking good but it probably won't make it through winter. The English ones croaked. I decided to try them all to see if any would make it. They went downhill when we got humid in June (except the Spanish). Have you been humid there? That was my best guess here because they were planted in the ground in gritty soil, perfect drainage, full sun and I didn't water them since I read not to do that. I keep saying I will not try them again, then I do.

As balloonflower says, Lavender is a shrub and will naturally go woody at the base. I'd get them out of those plastic pots asap. As you do it you can rub off any loose brown leaves and that will let more air into the base of the plants. They look to me as if they have been kept rather crowded, a little lacking in light and probably pushed on with fertilisers to get a larger plant for sale. The kinked and pale stems show that. They need to be grown airy and a little lean to toughen them up.

Hmmmm...I lost a lavender I had planted in a container this fall...to what I knew was too much water. I have bought a replacement but haven't put it outside yet because we keep having wet weather. I've had it about 2 weeks and I noticed the stems on it are turning brown too...It's in its original store container still as I plan on planting outside when it dries out. I have been watering it when the pot feels lights? Is this too much? I thought lavender needed water to get established and then once established needed very little. I'm afraid I may have already started to kill this one... So when do you water lavender?

I'm not sure I understand what it is you are trying to do. English lavender naturally grows into a mound or 'globe' shape - are you trying to develop a different shape? This is not a plant that would lend itself to topiaries or shaping very easily. A hedge would be a simpler approach but again, more of a rounded, mounded look than a precisely sheared block. Since lavender tends not to be a very long lived plant, I'd wonder at the advisibility of its use as a hedge plant. It is recommended to prune lavender twice a year - once in the fall lightly, removing old flower stems and just an inch or two of foliage. In spring as the new growth develops, you should cut back more severely but as bboy notes, not into any bare woody stems. This twice annual grooming will help to encourage a dense, compact plant with additional flowering stems. It is important to start this practice early in the life of the plant - allowing even a young plant to become leggy or splay open is not a recoverable situation.