Lavandula angustifolia 'Arctic Snow' - 9cm pot

White lavender with a cool head: compact, fragrant and unfazed by a dry summer.

Best for

• A crisp white edge to paths and borders
• Informal flowering hedges
• Mixing with purple and pink lavenders
• Bees and other helpful insects

The lowdown

• Compact English lavender (Lavandula angustifolia)
• Pure white flower spikes in summer
• Grey-green leaves with a scent of their own when you brush past
• About 50cm tall; plant 3 per metre

Keeping it happy

Give it the sunniest spot you have and soil that drains quickly. If your ground is heavy clay, mix in a few handfuls of grit or sharp sand first; lavender likes it lean, and neutral to chalky soil suits it fine.

Soak it once a week for roughly the first three weeks while the roots settle. After that, put the hosepipe away and only water in a long, dry spell: soggy roots are a bigger threat than drought. Once the flowers fade, clip it back into a tidy mound. Stop where there are still green leaves, because bare brown stems rarely sprout again.

English lavender is fully hardy, so it stays out in the garden all winter. Sold as a culinary herb, so you can use the flowers in the kitchen.

What arrives

One Arctic Snow plant in a 9cm pot.

Planning a white hedge? Have a look at our Arctic Snow bulk hedging packs.

Representative photo of white lavender (Lavandula angustifolia 'Alba'), not Arctic Snow itself. Photo: 'Lavandula angustifolia 'Alba' 1708' by Buendia22, Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0.