The longest I've been able to keep any of my lavenders alive is 3 years. If they get too much water in the summer, I lose them sooner than that, even with fast draining soil. I've also noticed that once the leaves start turning gray (from their usual bluish-green) they're history.

I've resigned myself to replanting them on a fairly regular basis. Fortunately they grow fast. Using a non-organic mulch is supposed to be beneficial because it keeps the lower limbs from staying damp. I use white marble chips, hoping that they'll reflect heat up into the plant.

I'm sorry I don't have any good news for you.

I would just wait until spring. Usually you can see little green new growth at the stems if it will come back. I agree, they are hard to keep going. I did have one planted on a slope with lots of sand worked in for drainage that lived for several years....I put one right back in that same spot.

I planted 12 plants late summer and I have lost two already.
Don't know what I will have by spring. We have had more rain than they like.

I'm convinced the only way to keep a lavender alive long-term is to keep it in a pot, where it can be moved without any stress from an unfavorable location or situation and where I can control the soil and other conditions it's living in. In the ground, soil has to be consistently dry and gritty and the climate has to be dry and gritty as well - haha - meaning no humidity. Predictable sure death here in my location of NC are steamy, super hot muggy days followed by runs of dry, blazing hot incredibly bright sun. The plant simply cooks - first its roots boil in the humid hot moisture that the soil produces and then the sun fries it. This is when my lavenders' leaves turn grey and crispy and the plants eventually die.

I've read lavender likes a constricted environment and favor a smallish pot. I believe this, because I recently had a huge one growing beautifully in its original, relatively small pot, in a cactus soil mix with a lot of small rocks added. I decided to repot it - bought an attractive large pot filled with good potting soil (not the cactus mix I'd used before). It's now declining - clumps of ugly shriveled black leaves - and not happy. Not sure if it's the soil or the larger pot - maybe both? It also doesn't seem to like any close neighbors crowding around it. I'm picturing an open gravel parking lot garden environment - not the look I'm going for. So maybe the problem is I'm trying to force it to move from its favored dry parking lot to my rich and green environment. Like digging up a plant from a rocky slope in Cypress and transplanting it into a rain forest.

All in all for me, it's just gotten to be too much work and after this last one kicks the bucket I doubt I'll try them again, although I really love them.

I have had great luck with lavender , as pat says, in pots. They are by the swimming pool so they get full dry hot sun. The ones that have consistently done the best is Provence. I harvest arm loads of it every year. They look really good for 3 yrs and then I replant. I have 2 Dutch lavender that I bought in Spring. They look great but have never bloomed. Not sure why. I also have 2 Hidcote in pots and they are OK but nothing special and the blooms are not as pretty nor as fragrant as Provence. So there you have it...Provence in pots...hot sun. Hope yours survive. c

I'm closer to the zone you are in and I grow more than a dozen lavenders of different types from munsteads to grosso to french lavenders. I haven't suffered a loss yet. It's ideal to replace lavenders after 3 years only to keep it looking fresh, but I've kept my plants for longer. Spanish lavenders or any of those lavenders that are considered butterfly lavenders will not survive our zones. They do fine in zone 8 but not in colder areas. I have managed to root new lavenders this season which I am proud of. Cold zone types lavender thrive in the cold zones and not so well in warmer zones. Best check with the website of Richter Herbs for the list of lavenders and their zones.

In my opinion do not remove or prune your plants now simply because winter is coming and those dying branches will provide winter protection to it's very center. Once that plant gets covered up with snow it will provide a form of insulation which will protect it through winter. Next spring when the snow has totally melted away and there is no longer any danger of frost, start pruning. Fresh new growth will start from its center.

I can only guess why your plants are suffering die backs, one is that we've had too many wet rainy weather. Lavenders like being on the dry side,otherwise they are susceptible to fungus or root drowning. It this is the situation with your plants, perhaps next season you should transplant them to higher grounds or simply mound the area so it's a bit higher and won't get flooded.

I planted three last spring. They're Provence lavenders. One survived the winter and has bloomed all summer. It's on a dry slope that gets a few hours of sun each day. I planted 3 new ones this spring including two that I grew from seed, Munstead, I think. They're not doing well even though one has bloomed. They're tiny and turning black. We've had little rain this summer, but now we're getting it almost every week. I suspect I'll pull them out next year and replace them with rosemary. It's the form and color I'm looking for, not necessarily the bloom. Though I do like walking by and smelling them. *sigh*

oops, I meant I'm growing provence lavender as opposed to French lavender. Dont' get be wrong about the wetness. Most of my plants have endured heavy rains but the water easily drains away and so it's never soggy. The problems you mentioned sounds like stem rot but I still would wait till next spring to prune it. If however you feel the need to do it now, make sure that you mulch this plant heavily.

Token, you are pulling out the plants because of it's form? Is it a question of prunning it into shape? I do regularly prune my plants into a ball shape - once in the spring and once more in late summer when most of hte blooms start to seed. Is rosemary a perennial in your zone? In my area, it's treated as an annual. Wish I could grow them as perennials

ianna ~ look for the variety 'ARP', this is the rosemary I grow, this past winter our temps dropped below 0* degree F, my rosemary came through with flying colors with no protection. It is said it is the hardiest of them all, grows 3-5 tall, spreads 2-3 feet and with mulch and burlap survives -10*F temperatures. It wouldn't hurt to give this one a try.

Annette

Thank you all for your advice, though the consensus doesn't seem all that promising.

I should have mentioned that our soil is very sandy, so it is extremely well drained; however, this summer was fairly cool, very wet, and more overcast than usual, with a few hot spells thrown in here and there ... just to keep us on our toes, I guess.

Interestingly, I noticed this afternoon on arriving home, that the one in the area with better drainage seems worse than the other two. Go figure.

We don't really get much snow cover here, seven minutes from the beach and surrounded by a U-shaped river/tidal marsh that mitigates both summer and winter temperatures. So perhaps a light mulch - something that won't hold too much moisture yet protect the crowns - may be in order.

I will probably take a few cuttings from healthy tips and see if they might strike roots for me over the winter in my small greenhouse.

None of these flowered profusely; I thought it might have been because I didn't prune properly (I've never had any before that lasted long enough to have to prune, lol), but, like Token, I find the the aroma of the leaves alone is a delight while working in the garden.

At least it is good to know this is a common problem and they are often not long-lived plants. In the future, I will be sure to start cuttings on a regular basis so there will always be replacements.

Hmm, you just clued me in on what could possibly be the other problem. Sandy soil is usually good for lavenders, however is it possible that you have problems with salinity? Sands near seashore or salt marshes still retain some levels of salts, what's more salt can migrate through air via wind and fog. lavenders do not like salts in fact, I won't even use road salts near them. Another thing, they don't do particularly well when you fertilize them. Instead, I use things organic like compost. Otherwise they are much like their wild cousins, they grow wild in dry arid areas and grow just about everywhere in the mediterranean.

cuttings are easy to do but it's better to use the semi green wood which is close to the base, and use rooting hormones.

Here in my zone 7b of North Carolina, we prune lavender before Halloween. If we forget to prune now, we prune at Valentine's Day, then again after bloom in the summer.

My Spanish lavenders lasted 3-4 years. They seeded out and I have "kids" here and there to replace the count for next summer. I just transplanted the kids around to be where I want them. I also just pulled out several Spanish that were 5 feet across. They would have been okay for one more year, but they had overgrown their location.

I have a lot of Munstead. This is one of those lavenders that will look like it is done in (grey), but may bounce back with some pruning.

Mix a little gravel in the soil if you need better drainage. You can also plant lavenders in gravel areas.

I have a Provence up against the east wall of my house and I think it will be my favorite -- it is just difficult to find around here (correctly labeled).

Cameron

ianna, I meant to say that I like the form of the Provence lavender, and rosemary which is a perennial here, has the same form, so I might switch and use that instead of lavender. Either way, I get a fragrance, just very different.

Ianna - Good observation but, no, no real salt problem here. We're on a hill that overlooks the river, which at high tide is brackish, but that's about it. There are also a lot of tall oaks here, with an abundance of understory trees and shrubs, which I think also act as a buffer.

We don't use salt to de-ice in the winter, and I only use organic fertilizers - preferably compost.

Interestingly, the one that's in the worst shape is the one in a bed with other plants that like a lean, rather dry soil and is maintained accordingly. The two that are looking better are in an area that was well amended with mushroom compost and are near a rose (which of course gets lots of fertilizer and water) and spring-flowering bulbs, with daylilies, irises, and a small raised-bed veggie garden behind them and lawn in front. (Maybe I've let the soil in the first bed get a little too lean?)

Cameron - It is encouraging to hear that you usually prune before Halloween and that the Munstead can get pretty sorry looking and still bounce back. As soon as this miserable weather passes (probably the same that passed through your area, but here it's met up with a cold front) I will go out and re-evaluate.