Friday, October 10, 2008

A Beginner's Guide to Growing Lavender

Lavender has been widely grown in gardens for its natural fragrance and for its use in arts and crafts. Growing lavender has become more popular; however, for its use in a variety of aromatherapy products. Lavender has a sweet floral scent with a woodsy sort of herbal aroma to it and is excellent for helping to relieve anxiety and tension.

It is used in aromatic bath salts and bath oils for a soothing relaxing bath and in sleep enhancing products such as aromatherapy pillows and sleeping mists that can be sprayed on your sheets to help you fall asleep. Lavender also has many medicinal purposes as well. It can be used as an anti-inflammatory, an antiseptic, as an insect repellent and can bring relief to insect bites.

It can help to soothe burns and ease headaches as well. Given its wide range of uses a lot of people are beginning to grow lavender for their own personal use in making a variety of these products.

Growing lavender is fairly simple and can be done from just about anywhere since it can be grown both indoors and out. There are three major types of lavender, identified by region, including the English variety (Lavandula angustfolia), the French variety (Lavandula x intermedia) and Spanish lavender (Lavandula stoechas). Of the three, it is the English variety that is most commonly used when growing lavender for aromatherapy, fragrant, and medicinal purposes.

When growing lavender indoors or in containers be sure to use sandy soil. Adding a bit of lime to the soil will also help in growing lavender that is healthy and fragrant. Preferring a lot of air circulation, you should keep your containers in a area where the plants can get plenty of air but is shielded from high winds. When watering your lavender plants, they will do best if they are allowed to dry out just a bit before the next watering.

When growing lavender out side, sandy rocky soil and sunny locations work best; although lavender adapts well to a variety of different soils. If using mulch, sand or pea pebbles work best and be sure to plan the lavender where you will get good drainage to prevent the roots from becoming too wet.

Growing lavender can be a easy and rewarding endeavor and is fairly simple even for those who are not gardening experts. Just keep the basic rules in mind and you should have great success growing lavender.

Sherry Harris is the author of the successful e-book "101 Amazingly Simple Ways to Beat Insomnia". Get the FREE e-book at http://www.ScentToSleep.com Hope you enjoyed the article topic Growing Lavender. Knock-out insomnia with aromatherapy sleep mist, so you can wake up refreshed and energized visit us now.

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