I have always loved lavender's fragrance, its colorful prolific blooms, its delightful oils, and soaps. I recently had the pleasure of taking a Stanislaus County UC Cooperative Extension Master Gardener workshop on lavender. It was led by fellow Master Gardener Heidi Aufdermaur, and I learned so much more about lavender.

History

A member of the mint family, Lamiaceae, lavender (Lavandula spp.) is an ancient herb. It is believed to have likely originated from Greece and is indigenous to the Mediterranean area, including Europe, the Middle East, North Africa, and Cape Verde. Long coveted for its fragrance, calming presence, and healing properties, lavender use has been documented for over 2500 years in many cultures around the world. The word “lavender” is derived from the Latin verb ‘lavare' which means “to wash.” In Medieval and Renaissance France, women who took in washing were known as ‘lavenders.'

• The Egyptians used lavender for cosmetics, medicines, and embalming mummies.
• Lavender was used in perfumes by the ancient Aztecs, in addition to mummification.
• In the 17^th century, Arabs domesticated the plant and brought it to Spain. The Spanish brought the plant to North America.
• The ancient Greeks used lavender to fight off insomnia and back aches.
• Romans used lavender oil for cooking, bathing, scenting the air, and in soaps.
• In the 17^th century lavender was used as a remedy for the Great  Plague in London.
• Queen Elizabeth I of England required lavender to be served at the royal table and fresh lavender flowers throughout her residence. She also used lavender tea for treatment of severe migraine headaches.
• Queen Victoria took an interest in lavender in the 19^th century and the English variety became popular.
  

  Making a wand involves weaving ribbon around each stem, Rachel Bahn.
• History states that the Shakers were the first to grow lavender commercially in the Americas.
• Today lavender is cultivated commercially in France, England, Italy, Australia, New Zealand, United States and Canada.

Growing and Caring for Lavender

Lavender is an evergreen, herbaceous, semi-woody perennial with silvery-green square-shaped foliage whose spike-shaped flowers come in many hues of purple, pink, and white. While lavender grows well in California Central Valley's Mediterranean climate, and will tolerate some neglect, they do have some basic requirements:

• Full sun.
• Thrives in poor soils with little to no fertilizer providing there is good drainage.
• Since lavender is difficult to grow from seed, it is best to plant a young plant in the spring, after the threat of frost has passed when the soil has warmed up to at least 60°F.
  

  Hidcote (English) lavender, Denise Godbout-Avant.
• If planting in summer, make sure you water regularly to keep the soil moist.
• If planting in fall, choose a larger, more established plant to ensure their survival over the winter.
• They do not like “wet feet.” If use organic mulch, keep it away from the crown to prevent excess moisture. A better choice is inorganic mulch such as pea gravel, decomposed granite, or sand.

 Caring for lavender:

• Water regularly until the plants are established, after which they need little water. Yellowing leaves is often a sign of over-watering. 
• Prune during the fall months.
• To keep plants neat and compact, shear back by one-third to one-half every year immediately after bloom.
• The flowering stems can be harvested while in bloom or snipped off after the flowers fade. Consider letting some of the blooms go to seed for small seed-eating birds such as finches and sparrows.
  

  Spanish lavender, creative commons license.

Varieties of Lavender

The three most common varieties of lavender are English, French, and Spanish:

• English lavender (Lavandula angustifola) is also known as True or Common lavender. Fragrant-rich, coming in both dark and light purple colors, it is a favorite culinary lavender, adding a sweet floral flavor to beverages, desserts, savory dishes, and meat.

o   Cultivars include: ‘Hidcote', ‘Lady', ‘Campacta', ‘Ellegance', ‘Goodwin Creek', ‘Jean Davis', and ‘Pastor's Pride'.

• French lavender (Lavandula dentata) is related to English lavender, but French lavender is larger, has a lighter scent and is less frost tolerant. It has a long bloom time, from spring through summer. It is used as cut flowers and potpourri.

o   Cultivars include ‘Allwood', ‘Lambikins', ‘Linda Logon', ‘Ploughman's Blue' and ‘Pure Harmony'. 

• Spanish lavender (Lavandula stoechas), otherwise known as Butterfly lavender, are frost tolerant, low bushes with long stems, and distinct dark purple heads that have “rabbit ears.” Due to their smaller size, they grow well in pots. Highly aromatic, they are a magnet for bees and butterflies. Used in aromatherapy, soaps, cooking, in tinctures and oils, as well as cocktails!
  

  Lavender wands, Rachel Bahn.

o   Cultivars include ‘Anouk', ‘Ballerina', ‘Munstead', ‘Otto Quast', ‘Papillon', ‘Regal Splendor', and ‘With Love'.

Lavender Uses

The most popular use of lavender today is in cosmetics and fragrances, including making bouquets, wreaths or wands, small sachets, eye pillows, potpourri, soaps, perfumes, facial and body oils.  Culinary uses include herbal teas, cookies, lavender ice cream, as a flavorful addition to wine, and even as a spice rub for beef and lamb.

If you enjoy doing crafts, make a lavender wand, which makes a great gift.

Here are a couple how-to-do links:

• https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UboN-V4Mv-c
• https://blog.pelindabalavender.com/2021/06/how-to-make-woven-aromatic-lavender-wand-instructions.html

For creative cooks, there are many lavender recipes from sweet to savory. An excellent book is The Lavender Cookbook by Sharon Shipley.

More Love for Lavender

Visit the local Pageo Lavender Farm in Turlock (http://pageolavenderfarm.com/) to see its fields of lavender and visit its shop with many lavender products.

Learning more about lavender has increased my appreciation for this beautiful, versatile plant. I made a lavender wand which lightly perfumes my closet, have a lavender eye-pillow for when I do the savasana pose in yoga (very relaxing!). I look forward to baking lavender shortbread, exploring other uses of lavender, and increasing the diversity of lavender plants in my garden!

If you do not already have lavender in your garden, consider planting some. Along with their lovely flowers and aroma, ease of care, they also attract bees, butterflies, and birds. You will love them!

Acknowledgements: Many thanks to fellow UCCE Master Garden Heidi Aufdermaur for sharing her love and knowledge of lavender!

Resources

• Lavenders for California Gardens: https://anrcatalog.ucanr.edu/pdf/8135.pdf
• Sunset Western Garden Book
• The Timeless Allure of Lavender by local author Cynthia Tanis (Kindle Edition on Amazon)
• How to plant, grow and care for lavender: www.almanac.com
• Lavandula: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lavandula

Denise Godbout-Avant has been a UCCE Master Gardener with Stanislaus County since 2020

 

 

 

Are you ready to take your gardening skills to the next level? Although the actual process of saving seeds is easy, there are a few tips you should know in order to be successful.

In this Seed Saving class from the UC Cooperative Extension Master Gardeners of Stanislaus County, you'll learn:

• What types of seeds to save and the difference between heirlooms and hybrid seeds.
• How flowers are pollinated and how seeds develop.
• How far apart to plant varieties of vegetables to ensure seed purity.
• How to save seeds and how long saved seeds last.

During class, you'll have a hands-on experience of separating flower and vegetable seeds from "chaff,*" and labeling to take home to your garden. Please join us at one of our classes at a local Stanislaus County library near you.

We are also excited to announce that classes are starting this month at the Waterford Library branch!

Seed Saving Classes for July 2023

Sat, 7/1 at 2:00 p.m. – Empire Library

Sat, 7/8 at 2:00 p.m. – Riverbank Library
Mon, 7/10 at 6:00 p.m. – Ceres Library
Tues, 7/11 at 6:00 p.m. – Salida Library
Tues, 7/11 at 6:00 p.m. – Oakdale Library
Thurs, 7/13 at 1:00 p.m. – Patterson Library
Mon, 7/24 at 5:30 p.m. – Modesto Library
Tues, 7/25 at 2:00 p.m. – Waterford Library
Wed, 7/26 at 6:00 p.m. – Turlock Library   

*chaff is the extra stuff growing around the seed like the spent flowers, pods, etc.

National Pollinator Week (https://nationaltoday.com/national-pollinator-week/) is an annual event celebrated all over the world during the last week of June (June 19 – 25 this year). During this week nature lovers and home gardeners celebrate pollinators and raise awareness about their valuable role in the plant kingdom and ways they can be protected.

Pollinators that hang around our gardens include bees, butterflies, hummingbirds, beetles, and flies. While all these pollinators are important, bees make up about 50% of pollinators.

Native Bees Prominent Role

When you see bees in your garden, you likely see many European honeybees (Apis mellifera), who are crucially important to the Central Valley's agriculture since Honeybees pollinate 90% of the almond crop.  But Honeybees are not the only bees in search of nectar in farmers' fields and our gardens. There over 4,000 species of native bees in the United States, with about 1,600 in California.  

Native bees play an important role in pollinating our plants since they are 200 times more efficient at pollination than Honeybees. Studies in the Central Valley have shown three dozen or so native bee species provide sufficient pollination services for a single farm.  For example, pollinating an acre of apples requires 60,000-120,000 Honeybees; the same area can be pollinated by 250-750 Mason bees (Megachile).

Social Characteristics and Nesting Habits

Most bees are solitary in nature, generally producing honey only for their own consumption and/or for their young. Nesting habits vary from social hives/colonies to solitary nesting in the ground or woody material.

• Social vs. Solitary bees:

o   Solitary bees make up 99% of all bees in North America, with social bees making up less than 1%. Only Honeybees and Bumblebees are social, living in colonies, with all other bees being solitary. Most Honeybees are domesticated, living in hives.  Bumblebees live in the wild, in colonies which are generally underground. Honeybee hives will have a population of 10,000-50,000 bees, while Bumblebees will have only 50-400 in their colonies.

• Ground nesting bees make up 70% of bees:

o   Mining bees and Digger bees (Adrena): As their names indicate, these bees have a ground-nesting lifestyle. From the outside, the tunnels look like holes with a ring of loose soil around them and can be mistaken for small ant hills or earthworm mounds. Mining bees are active only in the spring for 4-8 weeks during which the females dig tunnels to lay their eggs and raise their young. Both bees are extremely docile, rarely stinging. 

• Stem and wood nesting bees make up 30% of bees:

o   Leafcutter bees (Megachilidae) use a “wrapper” of leaves, resin, and sand to build their nests in natural or artificial cavities. If you see some leaves in your garden with their distinctive circular “cut out,” you will know you have some in your area. They are about the same size as honeybees, but their bodies are black and furry while Honeybees are dark brown to black and yellow striped. 

o   Mason beesconstruct their nests from mud, preferring hollow stems or holes made by wood-boring insects. Some people hang bee “houses” with hollow tubes to attract these bees to nest in their yard.

Generalist vs. Specialist Bees

Some bees are generalists, getting their nectar from a wide variety of flowers. These include the Bumblebee and the Mason bee. 

Other bees are specialists, feeding only from very specific flowers, such as the Squash bee (two genera: Peponapis and Xenoglossa) or the Sunflower bee (Megachile) with their common names indicating which type of flowers they favor.

Other Native Bees

Other bees you may see in your garden:

• Carpenter bees (Apidae): Females are shiny black and can sting, but only if provoked. Males are golden and can't sting. Their name derives from their nesting behavior; nearly all species burrow into hard plant material such as dead wood or bamboo. Occasionally they may nest in unpainted wood siding of buildings.
• Sweat bees (Halictidae): Sweat bees' common name is due to their tendency to land on and lick the sweat from people's skin! One of the coolest looking bees in this group is the green sweat bee, which has a shiny, iridescent exoskeleton. Most of these bees nest in the ground, though some nest in wood. Some species are cleptoparasites, meaning they will lay their eggs on food in another species' nest and after hatching, the larva kills the host's larva! 
• Long-horned bees (Melissodes): With medium to large bodies, this non-aggressive group gets their names from the long antennae of the males, which females lack. Females have a solitary nest in the ground whereas males sleep outside, often spending the night in groups on the surface of a flower.

Bees are in Trouble

All bees are facing many challenges these days due to loss of habitat, pesticides, diseases and infections, invasive species, and climate change.

Some ways you can help:

• Plant a garden full of flowering plants to attract bees and other pollinators. Make sure you have something blooming during each of the spring, summer, and fall seasons. Whenever possible, plant native plants since native bees and plants evolved together.
• If you use a pesticide, choose one that is less toxic such as a horticultural soap or oil and spray in early morning or evening when pollinators are unlikely to be present. (https://ipm.ucanr.edu/GENERAL/pesticides_urban.html)
• Provide spaces for nesting bees, with bee houses and bare patches of soil, along with a source of water.

By providing a bee-friendly garden, you can help the vital native bee pollinators thrive.

Denise Godbout-Avant has been a UCCE Master Gardener with Stanislaus County since 2020

The warm weather has arrived, and so have the pests! By now you've probably noticed a few munching on plants in your vegetable garden. If you are looking for solutions, we suggest taking our free Pest Management in Vegetable Gardens class at Turlock Community Gardens on Saturday, June 17, 2023 at 9:00 a.m*. 

During this class, you'll learn to identify pests that plague warm season vegetable garden crops like tomatoes, squash, and peppers. You'll also take home colorful and handy reference cards called Quick Tips to help you easily identify pests while you are out in the garden. We suggest you bring a chair, water, hat, note pad and pen (if desired) and wear comfy shoes. 

Turlock Community Gardens

Turlock Community Gardens was a project that was "born" in 2020 and in just a few short years has become an amazing place for the community. The garden is located at 4105 Crowell Road in Turlock at the back of the property. Read more details at https://www.turlockcommunitygardens.org/ 

Need something to do THIS Saturday?

Drop by the Gardens for community day. They host this fun event on the second Saturday of each month! As you can see by the flyer, there are a lot of fun activities planned.

Visit Turlock Community Gardens website for more information at https://www.turlockcommunitygardens.org/, or contact them with questions about garden plots, classes, and more at info@turlockcommunitygardens.org  

 *feel free to put insect pests in a plastic bag or vial to show our Master Gardener along with your information. They can bring it back to the office so we can help you identify it.