Where To Buy Dried Lavender For Cooking

Best Lavenders for Drying, Cooking, and Essential Oil

We all need to stop and smell the Lavender sometimes! In addition to their ornamental use in waterwise landscapes, Lavender plants can be harvested to take advantage of their amazing aromatherapeutic properties. Lavender's innumerable uses range from culinary to crafts. Imagine making flavored vinegars, jellies, baked goods and beverages. Craft fragrant and relaxing sachets, potpourri, candles, soaps, and cleaning supplies. Or, create a spa-like experience at home with essential oils of Lavender. Dried Lavender flowers can be used for sachets, wreaths, and wands. The possibilies are endless!

Records show Lavender has been in use for over 2,500 years, for bathing, medicine, cleansing, and even romance charms. Interested in the story of lovely Lavender's use over time? Learn More: A History Of Lavender

Best Lavender Cultivars For Lavender Oil

Best Lavender Cultivars For Drying

Best Lavender Cultivars For Cooking

This is a very subjective recommendation as different cooks will have different opinions as to what tastes best. Many French hybrids have an overabundance of camphor-like scent to their oil which can be overpowering in a recipe. English varieties are typically favored for culinary use.

Best English Lavenders For Cooking:

'Vera'
'Munstead'
'Hidcote'

Best French Hybrid cultivars:

'Gros Bleu' (the most like English, with a sweet, low-camphor component)

English Lavender is often the favorite for chefs or casual cooks, but taste preference is highly subjective.

Resources For Growing Lavender

by High Country Gardens

Western Swallowtail Butterfly Visits Miss Katherine Lavender. — A Western Swallowtail Butterfly Visits Miss Katherine Lavender, which is another benefit of this lavender in addition to being an ideal variety for drying lavender.

Best Lavender Varieties For Special Uses

In addition to their ornamental use in water-wise (xeric) landscapes, lavender plants are also used for other purposes such as lavender oil production, for dried flower products (such as sachets, wreaths, and wands) and as a culinary spice.

In this respect, not all varieties are the same.

Here are my recommendations for these different categories selected from the cultivars grown by High Country Gardens.

Best Lavender Cultivars For Lavender Oil Production

Lavandula intermedia Grosso is good for Oil Production — Lavender 'Grosso' is becoming increasingly popular due to it's lovely fragrance and use in essential oils, and for being a perfect variety for oil production.

This is of primary concern to commercial growers who grow lavender flowers from which to distill lavender oil, based on the weight yield of flowers per plant and oil content of flowers.

Best English cultivars:

'Vera'
'Hidcote Superior'

Best French Hybrid cultivars:

'Gros Bleu'
'Grosso'
'Phenomenal'

Lavender Phenomenal Field — Lavender Phenomenal is one of the most cold-hardy varieties of lavender, and has excellent tolerance of heat and humidity.

Best Lavender Cultivars For Drying

Best English Lavender cultivars for Dried Flowers:

'Royal Velvet'
'Sharon Roberts'
'Miss Katherine'

Best French Hybrid Lavender for Dried Flowers:

'Gros Bleu'
'Grosso'
'Phenomenal'

Culinary Use

Best English Lavenders For Cooking:

'Vera' and most other English types.

Best French Hybrid cultivars:

'Gros Bleu' (most like English with a sweet, low camphor component)

Long Blooming and Twice Blooming Lavender

Buena Vista Lavender Twice Blooming — Buena Vista Lavender is a sweetly frangant, and twice blooming variety with deep blue bi-color blooms. To ensure double-bloom, deadhead promptly after first round of blooms.

These are cultivars (varieties) that provide an extended season of flowering in the water-wise (xeric) landscapes.

The English cultivars will bloom in early summer and again in September (when promptly deadheaded after the first summer flush of flowers).

Twice Blooming English Lavender cultivars:

'Sharon Roberts'
'Buena Vista'
Pastor's Pride'

Longest Blooming French Hybrid Lavender cultivar:

'Gros Bleu'

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Grow Your Own Lavender Plants!