Gee, thanks so much Butterfly, Mehitabel!! I never would have thought of making the 'donut hole' to let the sun into the middle of the lavender.. In the Roswell, NM area & here in Albuquerque area there are a big lavender farms & even here in Albuquerque some commercial growers. I sew sachet bags & put the lavender,perilla, catnip, rosemary,western desert sage & sweet annie cuttings x my yard in them & 'stash' them descretly around the house & the aroma lasts a long time. The local nurseries can't believe my huge dusty miller survived this winter here outdoors! I will have to prune back the long branches though the whole huge plant is nice & full. The figs & pomegranates probably died back so will be a couple years of new growth x the bottom before we get any fruit again from them. Yes, Mehitabel, my two different (one smells like camphor!) artemesias are sprouting out fine. Sadly, I believe my old 6 ft. rosemary 'tree' was frozen all the way to the ground... no hope!

Moving it outdoors when the weather gets mild would probably do the most good for the plant. FataMorgana

'Perennial' is a botanical description of how a plant behaves in its natural habitat. Grown outside its natural habitat, its behaviour will change. If you cut one of the 'dead' stems and see some sort of green inside, there's an excellent chance that your lavender will resurrect - green is the colour of life in a plant. If it's brown, it's as dead as a dodo. I suggest leaving it, wait and see what happens when the weather warms up. Meantime, don't chop it back just yet - there might be life in them thar stems!

now that you see green live growth ... i dont see why you cant cut back to said growth ... all i know.. that its too late.. when you have to take an hour.. to surgically prune out al the dead stuff.. after spring growth is already growing up into it ... ken