Lavandula x chaytorae Richard Gray - Hybrid Lavender

Lavandula x chaytorae 'Richard Gray' is one of the most compact hybrid lavenders but also one of the most beautiful in the garden. Forming a cushion that remains dense even at an advanced age, it ages much better than most varieties, while offering an interesting contrast in summer between its very light woolly foliage and spikes of a magnificent deep violet. It is an indispensable evergreen undershrub in dry or rocky, well-drained soils, in a very sunny exposure.

The genus Lavandula belongs to the Lamiaceae family. This hybrid is part of a series obtained in the mid-1980s at the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew (England), easy to install in a dry garden, and tolerant of limestone. L. x chaytorae, also known as grey lavender, has inherited the robustness of fine lavender (L. angustifolia) and the wonderful silver foliage of woolly lavender (L. lanata). The variety 'Richard Gray' forms a nice round cushion with dense vegetation, reaching 40 to 50cm (16 to 20in) in flower, 20 to 30cm (8 to 12in) for the foliage, and a diameter of 40 to 50cm (16 to 20in). Its persistent leaves are narrow, particularly woolly and silver. They are even lighter when the soil is dry and the climate is warm. On the other hand, in cool climates, what the plant gains in foliage and robustness, it loses in colour and fragrance intensity. This variety has a summer flowering that lasts two months, from June to August, depending on the climate. Short and slender stems emerge above the foliage ball, bearing beautiful deep violet spikes, highly attractive to bees.

For us "northerners," lavender is synonymous with vacations. It evokes sunshine, the song of cicadas, the arid and fragrant hillsides of the Forcalquier region, and it is a piece of this atmosphere that we try to capture in our humid gardens. Lavenders have numerous and varied uses. In nature, these plants always live in poor, rocky, dry, perfectly drained environments, and experience the long, arid summers characteristic of the Mediterranean climate. It is only natural that they will find their place in rock gardens, alongside rockroses, creeping rosemary, sunroses, and Artemisias. Massifs can be created on large, well-drained slopes by planting different varieties of lavenders, whose volumes, flowering, and foliage will create a landscape with many undulations. Dry-loving perennials with vibrant or soft blooms can be mixed in to punctuate the landscape: Epilobium canum 'Western Hills', Salvia jamensis, Gaillardias, Hesperaloe parviflora with its red spikes, along with a Convolvulus althaeoides, a Provence bindweed that will run everywhere between and within the cushions without smothering them. A border of lavanders will look even prettier overlooking a wall, with aubrietas, for example, at their feet.