Conventional advice is to prune lavender after flowering.
If you do NOT prune the seed heads, then they are a feast for seed eating birds like this goldfinch on this freezing, frosty January morning.
Click on the pictures to enlarge or play the video.
7 comments:
I was about to deadhead my lavender this week, but I will hold off now. I had about 6-8 goldfinches stop by to feed on the seeds this morning. All these years growing it, I've never seen this happen! This is in Oregon, USA. I notice your Goldfinches have a red stripe on the head, where ours do not.
Cheers!
Thanks for that Neena. I'm much encouraged.
I'm in Oregon too. I just saw a goldfinch for the first time eating my lavender!
I'm in England and am watching a finch strip my lavender bush on this freezing cold morning - have never seen this before.
It is time that nature loving gardeners stopped cutting back lavender until early spring
I definitely will leave pruning lavender until later. Two beautiful goldfinches today on the one plant I hadn’t cut back. All grasses etc I have always left alone for a good while. Never thought about lavender. I will now!
Moved to New England two years ago, that first year nothing touched the lavender, but last year a Goldfinch came and stripped the lavender clean of flowers. He's just returned this year. It's one of the few times I see a Goldfinch here.
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