English lavender
Lavandula angustifolia
- Wants
- Bright direct
- Tolerates
- Bright direct down to bright direct
- Difficulty
- 2/5
- Pets
- Not safe
- Outdoors
- Hardy
Why it wants that
A plant of bare Mediterranean hillside makes its silver, oil-rich foliage and its flower spikes as a response to unshaded light, so shade costs you the scent and the flowers before it costs you the plant.
Too little light
The mound splits open and flops outward from the centre, stems stretch long and lax between leaf pairs, the grey bloom on the foliage fades to plain green, and few or no flower spikes form.
Too much
Nothing in a UK setting - it is a full-sun plant with no upper light limit here. Damage that looks like scorch is the pot drying out or, more often, winter wet, which RHS specifically warns to shelter it from.