Spanish lavender

Credit: Carol Pope

Spanish lavender adds a pop of purple to sunny garden plots

Instead of cut flowers for Mother’s Day this year, how about some gorgeous Spanish lavender (Lavandula stoechas) plants like these for mom to pop into her garden?

These beauties grow like mad in a sunny garden, providing a sea of dark-purple pineapple-like blooms, plus they are drought resistant, propagate easily and are 100 percent deer proof, something I don’t say very often!

(In zones colder than 6, you may want to overwinter in a greenhouse, or root some cuttings for back-up plants in the event of winter kill.)