With the wild success of the Spanish Lavender planted early on in our backyard garden, my husband suggested that we do a 'wall of lavender' along one of our retaining walls, with beautiful purples to last through spring and summer. As I already had a lovely purple Catmint at the end of it, it was a perfect idea to continue the purple theme, not to mention try out a bunch of varieties of lavender to see what was the hardiest, how uniquely each grew, and of course, compare scents.
The English Lavender "Hidcote" photographed here is much more of a shorty compared to its cousins the Spanish and French, at just 20" tall. It's also just coming into bloom as summer kicks off, whereas the Spanish has pretty much finished up and the French got going in early June. But I think it just might be my favorite of what we've had, because of it's deep purple clustered blooms. Rather than the French or Portuguese Lavender varieties that you see in magazines talking about Mediterranean gardening, this one is a bit cuter, cozier, and yet still smells dreamy.
I can attest to the fact that this is definitely a hardier lavender! As their only enemy is root rot from having too wet of feet, this one survived a wet winter where the flow of the slight slope in the yard went right through the lavender patch, and it's come up just stunning!
PS - dry this one, and put it in tea and other goodies...it's so worth it!