Lavender needs a soil that is as dry and sandy as possible, at best even stony. In this respect, planting in a gravel bed - sometimes also referred to as a rock garden - is ideal.
A gravel bed does little work
In addition to creating optimal conditions for your lavender plants to thrive, a gravel bed has another invaluable advantage: once it has been created, you have very little work to do. Weeds have no chance to grow excessively in such a rock garden. Lavender also benefits from this, because it can quickly be overwhelmed by unwanted plants in normal beds, as long as you don't keep weeding. However, in very hot and dry summers you have to make sure that the plants get enough water, i. H. if necessary, it should be watered.
Create a gravel bed
But before you can enjoy your little labour-intensive but always green gravel bed, you still have a little work to do: after all, the bed first has to be laid out. Depending on the needs of lavender, a rock garden is best planted on sandy or gravelly soil. However, other floors are also suitable for this type of design. To do this, first dig out a thick layer of soil, at least 20 centimeters, corresponding to the area of the bed. Fill the resulting hole with sand or gravel, which may have been mixed with some garden soil. Loosen the substrate well with a hoe and rake it smooth. Now you can - if planned - cover a path with colored decorative gravel, only then is the gravel spread for the beds. The beds can then be planted.
Suitable plants for the gravel bed
In full sun, the following plants harmonize with the planted lavender varieties:
- Various grasses such as B. Pennisetum grass, pampas grass or Chinese reed
- flowering perennials such as B. gentian, mullein, verbena, toadflax or pitch cloves
- Ground cover roses or shrub roses
- broom
- cherry laurel
- sedum
- spurge
- speedwell
- bearded iris
- plate hydrangeas
- Allium
- dogwood
- magnolias
- bright yellow flowering yarrow
- Highland asters
- blue diamond
- junker lily
- girl eye
Of course, the list is not complete. However, the plants listed harmonize particularly well with lavender, as they all have similar needs in terms of location, soil conditions and care.
tips and tricks
It can also look very nice to combine different types of lavender in different colors. Lavenders grow to different heights and bloom in various shades of blue and violet, as well as white and pink. Strong yellow flowering perennials such as the damsel's eye or the yarrow go particularly well with this.
IJA