Lavandula angustifolia ‘Thumbelina Leigh’ (Lavender)

A favorite of many gardeners: very small with a compact, rounded habit, two-tone flowers, and a long blooming season! Strongly fragrant and repeat flowering, English Lavender ‘Thumbelina Leigh’ (Lavandula angustifolia) features profuse violet-blue, plump flower spikes, blooming continuously from early to mid-summer. 

• Blooms once in early summer. Lavenders blooming once may experience a second, smaller flush of flowers during the season and maybe a third one if the flowers are cut soon enough.
• Evergreen in warm winter climates, it grows in a short bushy shrub, up to 12 inches (30 cm), but always makes a stunning appearance.
• Its compact growth habit and short spikes make it a beautiful candidate for containers. Also, ideal for low hedges, perennial borders, rock gardens, or herb gardens. Spectacular effect in mass plantings.
• Thrives in full sun and performs best in dry to medium, poor, light, sandy, and well-drained soils. Excellent drainage and air circulation are essential, specifically in hot, humid climates.
• Drought, deer, rabbit, and dry soil tolerant and a real magnet for bees and butterflies!
• Toxic to dogs, toxic to cats, toxic to horses.
• Trim back in spring to encourage bushier growth. Remove spent blooms to encourage new blooms.

English Lavender (Lavandula angustifolia), also called True Lavender or Common Lavender, is a type of lavender often associated with the famous purple lavender fields of Provence. Despite its common name, it is not native to England, but to the Mediterranean and counts over 40 different cultivars with flower spikes varying from blue-purple, lavender, violet-blue to white-pink. They create drifts of “cool” colors that sway elegantly in the summer breeze atop a beautifully contrasting gray-green to green-purple foliage of narrow leaves. Growing up to 2-3 ft. tall (60-90 cm), this Lavender type is great for formal or informal edging perennial along walkways, raised walls, and borders; also planted in beds, rock gardens, and in mass plantings. This is also the “queen of herbs” for herb gardens.