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Lavender will thrive in August if 1 item is added to soil now

Adding one item to soil will help lavender thrive even in the hot summer months

Lavender is a truly beautiful plant, and it's one that's a magnet for bees, and wonderfully simple to cultivate, provided you resist the temptation to treat it like an ordinary flower. The hot summer months are certainly a popular time to fertilise the garden, as most plants are actively growing, and feeding them now can help everything bloom for a lot longer.

However, lavender shouldn't be treated like any other plant, and as a woody herb native to the Mediterranean, it naturally flourishes in poor, sandy soil. It is perfectly accustomed to surviving in harsh conditions with very few nutrients, and applying fertiliser will simply divert its energy into producing an abundance of leafy foliage.

Not only will this place the lavender under considerable stress and cause it to cease flowering, but any tender new growth is likely to draw slugs into your garden, causing even further damage to the plant.

[Lavender]

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Gravel will help the soil drain(Image: Katherine McPhillips)

How do you help lavender bloom in summer?

Writing on Express.co.uk, Katherine McPhillips has revealed her method for supporting lavender growth throughout the summer months.

She writes: "Instead, if I want to help lavender grow lots of bushy purple flowers, I actually put gravel around it instead of using fertiliser."

Explaining how this works, Graham Smith, a gardening expert from LBS Horticulture told Ideal Home: "Lavender can produce leafy stems at the expense of flowers if there is too much nitrogen in the soil or if the soil it is growing in is too fertile.

"Adding sand or gravel can aerate the soil and reduce the intensity of the nutrients, as it mimics the natural Mediterranean environment in which lavender grows. The sand or gravel will also aid drainage in the soil."

When it comes to picking the right gravel, Graham recommends builder's sand or pea gravel, as these can provide better airflow than other materials when used as mulch.

Both of these can be purchased from B&Q - with builder's sand costing 3.75 and pea gravel costing 4.40.

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