hello everyone, so I'm a little concerned about my 23 lavender along our front fence ....these plants have been here for 3 years (this summer is 3rd bloom) .....for each plant, I used fence post hole digger to create its hole, then used a combo of the soil there was here (well, dirt + clay) and a mix of planting soil & top soil ....they did their very best first summer after planting, and of the 23, I now have about 5 to 7 that are showing some signs of stress / major stress / not doing well / under watering / over watering / ????? .....this area gets full sun all day, as this side of my fence faces south .....also to note: I did the commercial grade veg stop cloth full length of this bed to keep other vegetation & weeds out from around the lavender .....not sure if that is preventing too little air around bases but this next pruning / cut back in the Fall, I plan to enlarge the holes around the base of each lavender ....ok, the pics: first pic the entire bed, 2nd pic is one of the plants doing well, fully bloomed and bright purple .....the following 4 pics are my signs of stressed / not doing well .....it is now mid July and they are in their glory, so I do not want to do anything major now (but looking at the ones not doing well breaks my heart) .....key for me to know beside what may be or IS causing this is what to do in the Fall when I prune / cut them back ?? ...or what I can do now to help the ones not doing well ??....... lastly, I have only directly watered these lavender 1 time this summer thus far, we had tremendous heat wave here is Pac NW and I felt the need to hit each plant at their base with the free running hose for a few minutes each one early evening during said heat wave .....THANK YOU all very much for the help

Where are you located and what lavender are you growing?

French lavender (Lavandula stoechas) and its hybrids is much shorter lived than English lavender (L. angustifolia) and in colder climates all lavenders tend to be shorter-lived than in milder climates.
Three years is about how long I would expect French lavender to last before becoming unsightly and in cooler climates lavandin (L. x intermedia) would last about the same before starting to become ugly.

I don't think the weed cloth was a good idea. If it were me, I would remove it and use mulch. All that black intensifies the sun, and even though lavenders are Mediterranean plants, I think it's too much concentrated heat on them. Here I cut my lavenders back after they bloom, and I never water mine, either, but they have gotten pretty ratty looking, and they are 5 years old, so I'm thinking or pulling them up and replacing them.
What usually kills lavender here is the winter rains; it just rots them right out.
If you do replace the failing ones, don't use such a rich soil mixture, just amend what you have with small gravel, that helps with excess water retention.

ElPollo: I thought all types of lavenders, if remain healthy, last 15, 20 years, maybe more ....?? at least that is what I read ....and I see some lavender fluids here on Whidbey Island that have same plants for countless years ......what types of lavender are the have the highest longevity ?? .....these I planted are a combo of Provence, Grosso & Phenomenal

garden fish: I am beginning to think you are right, I'll plan to cut & pull up the weed cloth ......I began spreading mulch on the front end of this bed in early Spring, maybe I wait, make the holes around plant bases bigger come Fall and then mulch a couple inches on to top of weed cloth ?? ....yeah, I'm thinking I'm going to have to replace many of these, if not this next year or in the Fall, soon .....I do like the idea of the weed cloth removal and just layer in 2 or 3 inches of mulch .......hhhmmmm....

oh, El Pollo: I am on Whidbey Island in WA State, so in the Pacific NW

All the plants you planted are cultivars of Lavandin (Lavandula x intermedia), an interspecific hybrid between L. angustifolia (English lavender) and L. latifolia (Portuguese lavender).
Lavandin was bred to have larger flowers and especially yield more essential oil than both parents but it's not a particularly long-lived plant: commercially grown plants in France (Grosso being the most common) are replaced every 4-5 years since they start declining and essential oil yields start dropping.
Lavender plants don't just die like that: they start declining a bit every year until they usually become so unsightly you have no choice but to pull them from the ground.

The longest lived lavender is English lavender (L. angustifolia), which incidentally also supplies the highest quality essential oil. They will live a decade or more even in unfavorable weather but usually require harder pruning than other lavenders. 'Hidcote Blue' is the most common cultivar but I strongly suggest you look into two brand new cultivars 'Havanna Dark' and 'Forever Blue' since they have been bred for longevity and long flowering time. 'Richard Gray' is an exotic possibility if you like true silver-gray foliage.

Aside from the dieback, those lavenders look healthy and happy!

Was that growth dead at the end of winter or has it just appeared recently?
If recently, given your recent weather, they could just need more water. I see you're off the coast, does it usually rain a lot there? If you are not getting summer rain, then you might need to irrigate more than you are. Deep and infrequent.

If they emerged from winter like that, it could be rotten roots from excess winter water. I can't help but think that black fabric must hold a lot of moisture in the soil. For years I've read advice to mulch lavenders with light or white mulch (like white rocks or gravel) to reflect heat up into the center to help prevent excess moisture from causing rot. As Lynda stated above, what kills most lavender is sitting in wet winter soil.

If there is even the slightest hint of new growth at the base of all that dead stuff, trim it back just above the visible new growth. It will likely growth back.

My lavenders often have partial dieback for no obvious reason and usually I just cut it out and the new foliage fills in the gaps. About half of my Grosso was dead in early spring this year, all on one side, possibly due to our unusual freeze. I cut out all of the dead growth and was certain it would remain lopsided, but it filled in just fine. Not great photo here, but trying to show that it grew back mostly symmetrical.

ElPollo: thank you for this excellent info .....so the Provence, Gosso and Phenomenal are short lived / short lifespan ?? even in ideal temperament & soil conditions .....I will shoot a pic of this massive grouping of lavender near a church in town that I'm been told have been there for a couple decades and they are never tended, and guessing not watered either during thew Summer, they are shorter and instead of flower blooms on long stalks, they have a round short busy & think bright purple .....these are they type I'd like to begin planting in my bed as I remove damaged, highly stressed or dying ones I have in my bed along my fence .....

Mine don't die off, I'm in California, I have to cut them down otherwise they get bushy. I just bought some Grosso and Provence this year so I don't really know.

IsItCool - you don't need to look too far away for ideas - take a pleasant drive to Sequim and compare their soil and sunshine to yours; they are known for their lavender. Theirs is less clay, more sand and flint...more sun (well, in a normal year). I also think the landscape cloth was not helpful. I think that you did no favors with the addition of compost and OM and might have been better served with grit to aid drainage. In spite of that, really your plants look pretty good.
Something to keep in mind - when discussing plant longevity some of that relates to the plant producing the best essential oil and unless you are extracting oil plants can go on fr quite a long time - judicious pruning while plants are still fairly young helps prevent the woody dead-interior look. I also prefer angustifolia, I can generally only find "Hidcote' and now El Pollo really makes me want to find 'Havanna Dark' and 'Forever Blue'. If I remember correctly 'Phenomenal' was bred for areas with high humidity (I remember that it was being introduced when I was living in Memphis as a lavender bred for the Southern climate).
As you say - some lavenders seem to do just fine for many years with very little attention - but they are growing where they want to be in the well drained, low nutrient, hotter and sunnier micro-climate and having been growing there for years without attention their soils have likely depleted to their liking. Sorry but those general conditions are just not what comes to mind as I picture getting off the ferry in Clinton.

Here is mine with very little attention for 7 years, I had to cut this back recently because I couldn't get through. I don't know what variety this lavender is but I didn't order it online, probably something from Home Depot or Lowe's. The key thing is not to fertilize them, they want terrible soil to produce fragrant flowers.

Most likely the reason for die back is to much water causes soggy roots . Eventually the roots develop a disease called root rot and continue to die off . They require fast draining soil much like succulents and cacti.

I have several areas of hidcote lavender around plants to deter deer they look ok but not great. They never do as well as the spanish lavender in my zone do much better. Lavender require light shade from the harsh afternoon sun in our northern hemisphere.

Need to add that they need to be cut back yearly to prevent hard woody stems that do not produce flowers.

Mine is the same as Beas…. It does better here than the English. I don't fertilize it, ever. I don't water it, either, but I'm guilty of not cutting it back hard, so it's very poor looking and very woody. That's why I said in a previous post that I might pull it up and start over. I planted it in my clay dirt amended with very fine gravel and mulched it with more gravel, and it's in the highest corner of the perennial bed. That's why it's probably still alive, we get quite a lot of winter rain. I do have a phenomenal, but it's only a two year plant and so far I'm not impressed with it.

JBarstool said:and now El Pollo really makes me want to find 'Havanna Dark' and 'Forever Blue'. If I remember correctly 'Phenomenal' was bred for areas with high humidity (I remember that it was being introduced when I was living in Memphis as a lavender bred for the Southern climate).

Priola, one of Italy's best nurseries, has bought license to propagate and sell both 'Havanna Dark' and 'Forever Blue', and started selling them earlier this year. I don't know if they ship to France, but they sell both cultivars at €5 each and I can vouch for how good their plants are.

thank you all very much, EXCELLENT feedback and info ......with my 23 lavenders, well about 35 if you count the others on our property not in the bed along this fence, and it being mid July and they are in fully glory, I'm going to leave them be for now but in the Fall, not only dig up and remove the ones doing bad / very bad, but pull up all the weed cloth and replace with thick layer of mulch full length of bed, then plant in any new lavenders (Havana Dark and/or Forever Blue if I can procure them here in the Pac NW) in place of the ones that are removed ......then let the Fall & Winter do their things and see what happens come next Spring .......I've read above loose pea gravel or sand to amend (well, deplete) the plant's soil, as as I remove plants & replace them, any tips of properly amending soil for each new one, based on being in the Pac NW, before planting highly appreciated .....also, any recs on lavenders that do well, have done well or are know to do well or great in the Pac NW appreciated ......