"Lavender's blue, dilly dilly, lavender's green,
When I am king, dilly dilly, you shall be queen"

How To Grow Lavender Indoors

Growing lavender indoors holds great appeal due to its gorgeous, soothing fragrance, its’ uses around the home – in the kitchen add it to desserts, teas, cocktails etc. 

There are some challenges facing the gardener to successfully grow healthy lavender indoors, so below we cover some of the things to take into consideration to ensure you succeed with your lavender. 

The Best Lavender To Grow Indoors

There are literally hundreds of lavender varieties to choose from, so ideally when picking one for an indoor plant choose one of the smaller, dwarf lavender varieties that will grow to about 12 inches in height.

Popular amongst these are Compacta (light purple flowers), Crystal Lights (with a creamy, white flower), Dwarf Munstead (deep blue flowers), Little Lottie (with pink-purple flowers), Thumberlina Leigh (dark violet-purple flowers), and Wee One (with short blue flowers this is the smallest English Lavender).

Choice Of Pot For Your Lavender

Lavender thrives in close quarters, so it is ideal for growing in a pot. Select a pot which will only be a couple of inches larger than the root ball of the lavender – too large a container and there would be compost around the plant where there are no roots, with the potential of this compost staying wet and the roots starting to rot.

Avoid using a plastic or metal pot – these may look attractive, but they will negatively affect the growth of the lavender. You are best to choose a terra cotta, clay or ceramic pot which will be sturdy, strong and porous – allowing better airflow to your plants and absorbing water helps prevent your lavender from being in too wet an environment.

So you have chosen the size and type of pot – but don’t forget to check that there are adequate drainage holes in the base. Unlike a plastic pot where you could add holes, these pots need to have the holes already built in. Having drainage holes in a pot to be used indoors also means you’ll need a saucer underneath the pot to catch any excess water and prevent any surface from being damaged. 

Selecting The Best Compost For Your Lavender

Lavender is originally a Mediterranean plant and will grow best in a compost which gives good drainage and is slightly gritty – so when filling your chosen pot you could create your own compost mix with a base of good quality potting compost, together with the addition of some cactus compost, horticultural sand, perlite, vermiculite. You could also add clay pebbles or gravel at the base of the pot before you add your compost mix to ensure your lavender doesn’t get root rot.

Lavender also likes an alkaline compost (pH between 7 -8); you can achieve this by adding a small amount of lime when mixing your compost. Or, if you like to recycle, you could crush up eggshells and mix them into the top of the compost once a month.

Checking pH Is Easy Using this easy to use pH meter means it only takes a couple of minutes to measure how acidic or alkaline your soil is.   With a large display face for easy reading this meter can be used time after time, testing soil in your garden, raised beds, pots etc etc.   Click here to see full details.

Top Tip To keep your pots of indoor lavender thriving plan to re-pot once a year.  

The Best Place To Position Pots Of Lavender Indoors

Lighting

Where you keep your pot or pots of lavender when growing indoors is important (as it is for all plants grown indoors) due to the lack of natural light compared to it growing in your garden.

For plants like lavender, that thrive in sunny climates and places where they get maximum light, to achieve this indoors will often mean keeping their pots near a south-facing window – remembering to turn the pots weekly to ensure even, healthy growth.

The other option is to supplement the lighting in your home with some grow lights over your potted plants – which will provide even, full spectrum light, no matter where the pots are. These types of lights can be cost effective – you just need a way of suspending them over your plants which is suitable for an indoor setting.

Air Flow

When lavender is grown outdoors there is no problem with air flow. Indoors this can be an issue and it’s simply a case of getting the balance right. Avoid direct heat sources – so radiators, fires etc – whilst at the same time ensuring your lavender gets a degree of air circulation without being exposed to a cold air draft from doors or windows. Achieving this will not only benefit the health of your lavender, but you will also gain from the glorious scent drifting throughout your room.

Caring For Indoor Lavender Growing In Pots

Watering Your Lavender

Like many plants, lavender flourishes when it receives just the right amount of water. Over watering – so its roots are constantly sat in wet compost, can cause them to rot – needs to be avoided, whilst under watering – specifically allowing the compost to completely dry out for a long length of time – will damage the lavender and the lower leaves will start to dry and turn yellow.

Very often keeping the level of water correct will mean you only need to water your potted lavender once every couple of weeks – simply use a moisture meter or the finger test to check the moisture in the compost at a depth of about 5 inches – if it’s dry there it’s time to water.

When watering, ideally apply the water to the compost rather than over the plant. Using a watering can with a narrow spout will make this simple. Indoors the foliage will have less opportunity to dry quickly and by staying wet could lead to disease or encourage pests.

Feeding Your Lavender

All potted plants rely on the gardener to provide nutrients to keep them healthy. They have a limited amount of compost to get their nutrients, so you need to keep them regularly fed. Ideally with lavender just make it part of the watering routine, adding a water-soluble fertiliser once a month through the active spring and summer months. 

Pruning Your Lavender

You can help your lavender plant to become bushier and fuller by pruning the tips. However, you need to be aware that regular pruning will reduce the quantity of flowers on your lavender, as you are removing the tips where the flowers would form. A simple prune, twice a year (once in the spring and once in the autumn), should help to keep the lavender compact, non-woody and attractive, resulting in healthy foliage and abundant flowers.

Always Be Pet Aware With Lavender

If you have cats or dogs which share your house, then we always recommend considering them before choosing a potted plant and lavender is no exception. You can read lots of conflicting advice on lavender and whether it is toxic when ingested by cats or dogs. Simply because there is conflicting advice we would say that you should either locate the potted lavender where it can not be reached by your pets or choose a different plant for indoors.  

Our posts are created from our personal knowledge, information gathered by speaking to other gardeners or manufacturers in the gardening industry, by reading gardening magazines and devouring information from books and the internet. We aim to be as accurate as we can, so if you find a mistake, please remember, we’re only human.