Lavandula angustifolia Seeds | Rosea Lavender
LATIN NAME: Lavandula angustifolia
COMMON NAME: Rosea Lavender
Plant Profile
Rosea lavender is the pink form of English lavender, and it behaves exactly like the species apart from colour. Plants make neat grey mounds 45-60 cm high and a little wider, with narrow leaves and slender spikes that open in June and repeat lightly in August if trimmed after the first flush.
The pink is soft rather than strident, closer to dusty rose than to magenta, and it reads well against grey foliage without the glare that a hotter pink would give. It is also a useful colour bridge between the blues of the border and the yellows of high summer.
English lavender is native to the western Mediterranean hills, from Spain through southern France into Italy, on thin limestone soils at altitude. That origin is the whole cultivation brief: sun, air, drainage, and a lean diet.
Science & Biotechnology
Flower colour in lavender comes from anthocyanins accumulated in the petal tissue, and the pink forms lack the delphinidin-derived pigments that make the blues blue. The scent chemistry is essentially unchanged, dominated by linalool and linalyl acetate, so a pink lavender distils to an oil indistinguishable in analysis from a blue one.
Lavender oil has a reasonable research base for anxiety and sleep, mostly in small trials using encapsulated oil or aromatherapy massage, with modest effects. Its antimicrobial activity in vitro is well documented and is the basis for its use in cleaning products.
Naming is worth a note. Rosea is a colour form, not a fixed clone in every catalogue, and seed-grown plants vary from pale pink to a lilac that reads as blue in some lights.
Uses & Benefits
The most reliable use is the simplest: a low hedge along a path, clipped after flowering, releasing scent every time something brushes past. The spikes dry well and hold their colour better than the blues, which fade to grey within a year.
Pink lavender is popular in wedding work because the colour photographs warmly and the scent carries. In the kitchen the flowers are used sparingly in shortbread, ice cream and sugar, and a spoonful in a gin bottle turns it pale rose within a week. Bees work the flowers heavily, and the plant is a good early-summer nectar source in a dry garden.
Growing from Seed
Sow on the surface of a gritty seed compost in late winter and give the seed four weeks of cold before warmth; germination is slow and uneven, often three to six weeks at 18°C. Do not overwater the seedlings, which are prone to damping off.
Set plants out at 40 cm apart in full sun, on soil that drains fast and is not rich. A handful of lime or wood ash at planting suits them. Water through the first summer only. Trim after flowering by about a third, keeping the shears above the leafless wood, and take cuttings in August from non-flowering shoots if you want to hold a particularly good pink.
Our Take
A quietly useful lavender that softens a blue-and-grey scheme and dries better than most. Trim it once in late July and it will give a second, thinner flush in September.
Related Reading
Gardeners who grow Rosea Lavender often pair it with these related subjects: