welcome to the rustic garden today I
want to talk about when to start your
lavender indoors and how to start it
first thing today is March 9th this
lavender was started in my grow lights
on January 5th and you can see about
eight nine weeks later I have two plants
that are to size there's a third one
right there that I'm going to separate
out but it germinates very slowly you
can take 14 21 28 days for the seed just
to germinate and you can see germination
is not that great so when you plant
lavender if you want three plants you
want to plant at least nine cells worth
so just kind of think ahead a little bit
when the plant gets to this size you can
just put it into a Styrofoam cup like
I've showed in some of my videos or
recycled container that maybe your
neighbors gave you from their annual
plants that they planted any kind of
container that's the size of a cup just
like that it'll give it enough time to
grow longer three or four more weeks in
your greenhouse or indoors so that when
you get it outside you get to have an
established plant it may even flower
depending on a variety and you'll really
be able to appreciate it for the summer
this year if you start the seeds outside
it's going to take four weeks maybe put
in germinate then for it to get up the
size and you're not going to really
appreciate the plant this year they'll
have to establish overwinter and come
back next year
when your seed starting lavender a
couple of things fill the tray up the
seed cells up and then pack them down
you want a nice solid starting base a
lot of people just fill it up once and
it's really loose and sometimes the
seeds will fall down lavender does not
want to be buried it wants to be just
scratched into the surface so you want a
really firm planting base so fill it
once pack it down pack it down again and
this will set up your planning base for
your lavender and because it's such a
poor germinator
you're going to want to put three or
four seeds
into each cell they're really tiny
oval-shaped shiny and I just grabbed
three or four seeds sprinkle them around
they do reflect so they're kind of easy
to see three or four seeds into each
cell spread them out if more than one
germinate sometimes you can separate
them if there's enough space between the
roots but you're really hoping just to
get one plant in each cell so three or
four and each one I know that's hard to
see on video and then it says barely
press in and all you do is I just gently
scratch them into the surface you do
want the seeds to have good contact with
your starting mix so they can absorb the
moisture swell up and germinate and all
that stuff but you're not pushing these
really below the surface and then I just
gently press them in just like that
and you would label it as of actually
I'll reuse this one today's I think it's
the ninth lavender 3:9 and it can take
3-4 weeks for these to germinate I'm
good at bottom water do not water the
top you will float away and splash the
seeds especially proceeds that are just
pressed in water from the bottom and
basically fill up wherever your your
tray fill it up so the water comes to
here just drop it in whatever it doesn't
absorb in 20 to 30 minutes just chop out
of the tray and you will have your
lavender started hope you enjoyed the
video please remember start lavender
really early 8 to 10 weeks before it's
going to go outside hope you enjoyed the
video please check out my blog at
www.micaelaferrero.com