French Butterfly Lavender Plants

The Original Wild French Butterfly Wing Lavender

Latin Name: Lavandula stoechas

Butterfly or Papillon lavender is a wonderful low hedging plant packed with highly perfumed mauve flowers in midsummer. The flowers, held on elegant, slender stems, are made up of fat little wine-coloured flowerheads topped with long mauve ‘wings’, which flutter in the breeze along with all the bees & butterflies they attract.
The grey-green evergreen foliage is strongly scented, and it's a smaller shrub than our other lavender varieties, up to just 60cm tall, ideal for tight spaces.

French lavender blooms earlier than its "English" angustifolia relatives, sometimes starting in May: if you deadhead it a little, you can extend its flowering into August, but June & July are its peak season.

Features

• Colour: Purple-pink
• Height: 60cm
• Scent: Sweet, honeyed
• Flowering: May/June to July/August
• Evergreen, grey-green aromatic foliage
• Drought resistant
• Attractive to bees and butterflies

Growing French Lavender

It is classed as frost hardy, meaning it will withstand outdoor temperatures down to around -5C without damage, so it needs a sheltered spot, ideally against a south-facing wall. In colder regions, we recommend growing in pots that can be moved into shelter in winter, or preparing a system to cover them up in the depths of winter. Horticultural fleece is good for rows, and buckets with ventilation holes in them, or large pots, work for covering single plants.

Plant in sharply drained soil and full sun. If your soil’s heavy, dig in lots of sharp sand & grit and make a ridge or raised bed, or save yourself the trouble and grow it in pots.
Prune immediately after flowering.

Planting Companions for Butterfly Lavender

All Lavender does well in pots, which have the free-draining soil it needs, and a group of them in terracotta pots of varying heights around a seated area has a simple and effective rhythm. It’s a classic path edging plant, where every time you brush past you’ll release a heavenly waft of perfume.

Combine it in sunny borders with other Mediterranean sun lovers such as thymes, rosemary, santolina, stachys and other later-flowering varieties of lavender, both purple and white, which will prolong the lavender season in your garden. It grey-green foliage will blend marvellously in a gravel garden.