Lavandula stoechas Fathead

Lavandula stoechas Fathead is a compact French lavender with rounded, densely packed purple flowerheads topped by showy purple bracts above aromatic greygreen evergreen foliage. Flowering from late spring into summer, it provides colour, fragrance and nectar for visiting pollinators. For Irish gardens, plant in full sun and very freedraining soilideally sandy or chalkyand keep winter wet at bay; it thrives on poorer, moderately fertile soils and copes with dry conditions once established. Excellent in containers, gravel gardens and sunny cottage or Mediterraneanstyle borders; deadhead and lightly trim after flowering to maintain shape, avoiding cuts into old woody stems.

To help give a clear sense of scale, the stone wall shown in our photos measures approximately 265cm in height. We also use familiar garden tools as visual references: a digging fork (110cm tall) and a hand fork (30cm tall). These are