Are you sick and tired of throwing out coffee grounds after your coffee drink every morning and thinking you can use them to make your garden plants thrive?
Yes, coffee grounds contain high nutrient content, which can nourish your garden but are they good for lavender plants?
Coffee grounds are not recommended for Lavender plants, because Lavenders are not acid-loving plants, and since coffee grounds are very acidic in nature, you should avoid using it. However, plants like Blueberries and Daffodils are most ideal for coffee grounds.
Lavender plants are fantastic plants to have around. They don’t only look good and smell amazing but they can also be used in cooking and making sachets.
It’s so easy to care for lavender plants as long as you know how to do it. But can you use coffee grounds to fertilize lavender plants?
What Are Lavender Plants Used for?
Lavender plants are used for essential oil therapy, home remedies, and cooking and baking. They can also be used as an ingredient in beauty products. Lavenders are used for their aroma, sedative, and healing properties.
Fresh lavender flowers may be used in sauces, marinades, and desserts. Try as much as possible to handle fragile dried flowers with care and use them in teas, salts, potpourri, sachets, and crafts. All these make lavender an exceptionally versatile plant.
Can You Use Coffee Ground to Fertilize Lavender Plants?
No, you shouldn’t use coffee grounds to fertilize lavender plants. Coffee grounds contain a high acid content and adding them to your soil isn’t advisable if you’re planting lavender.
Since coffee grounds are very high in acid, plants like lavender and aloe don’t benefit from them. We recommend that you only use fresh coffee grounds as fertilizer for acid-loving plants and when you do, do so sparingly.
If your soil is already high in nitrogen, adding coffee grounds can stunt the growth of fruits and flowers.
What Plants Can You Put Coffee Grounds On?
So, which plants like coffee grounds?
Coffee grounds are suitable for acid-loving plants, such as radishes, citrus fruits, carrots, blueberries, camellias, cranberries, lily of the valley, gardenias, azaleas, rhododendrons, hydrangeas, and so on. These plants will get a boost from fresh grounds.
What Fertilizer Is Good for Lavender?
Since coffee grounds are not good for lavender plants, what then should you feed your lavender plants with?
To fertilize your lavender plant, simply dig about an inch (2.5cm) pit around the plant and fill it with good compost.
Once you’ve done this, leave it alone. This would supply the necessary nutrients to your lavender plant for the years to come. You can also feed your lavender plant with a small amount of slow-release fertilizer.
Mind you, the best – and only – time to fertilize lavenders is in the springtime at the start of the growing season. Don’t fertilize in the fall and don’t fertilize lavenders too much.
Likewise, bone meal is good for lavenders. Lavenders are lime-loving plants and grow best where there is adequate calcium in the soil. As the lavender matures, fertilizing with nitrogen will encourage long stems and full flower heads.
Hence, blood and bone meal are beneficial as a source of nitrogen to lavender plants.
Other Care for Your Lavender Plants
Lavender plants need very little water to survive, and you may drown them when you try to do them a favor by adding so much water. The same thing goes for fertilizer application.
Lavenders naturally prefer nutrient-poor soil. Adding too much fertilizer to lavender may cause the plant to grow excess foliage and never flower, especially if the fertilizer is rich in nitrogen. It may cause the root of the plant to burn, especially if there is limited moisture uptake.
Sometimes, fertilizing lavender too heavily may also cause discoloring on the edges of leaves, flat the plant out, or kill it. Established lavender needs fertilization only twice a year – once in the spring and once in the fall.
One potent way to remove excess fertilizer – and nutrients – from lavender plants is leaching. Leaching is the seeping of fertilizer salt and nutrients down onto the soil through watering.
Leaching helps to wash the excess fertilizer down into the soil below the root zone, which allows the lavender plant to begin the recovery process. More than it needs fertilizer, lavenders prefer at least 6 to 7 hours of full sunlight should be planted in well-drained soil.
Whether indoors or outdoors, taking care of your lavenders requires a sunny spot, less water, and almost no fertilizer. The biggest mistake most gardeners make with lavender is to overwater it and not give it sufficient direct sunlight.
Can You Grow Lavenders in A Container?
Yes! You can grow lavender plants in a container, especially if you live in a humid or moist region. Planting lavenders in a container may be the only way to give your lavender sufficient air circulation and adequate drainage to prevent rot.
Naturally, lavender thrives in the dry soil and sunny climate. The plant may turn brown due to fungal infection as the result of excess moisture in regions with higher humidity or rainfall. Make sure that the container, usually a terra cotta pot, is filled with a quality potting mix.
More so, lavender plants grow best at a slightly alkaline soil pH while most potting soils are slightly acidic, so you may wish to add lime to the potting soil at the rate of 2oz. to 3oz. per cubic foot of potting mix.
When choosing the fertilizer, choose the timed-release granules type or a type of fertilizer that provides nitrogen in the nitrate form.
Quick Guide to Growing Lavender
Plant your lavenders in spring, once all chances of frost have passed. This beautiful, fragrant herb can be grown in raised beds, in-ground gardens, or grown in containers.
When planting, space lavender plants about 12in to 18in apart in an area with lots of sunlight and well-drained sandy soil with a pH of between 6.7 to 7.3.
Give young lavender plants an excellent start to the growing season by feeding them with organic fertilizer. Mix in several inches of compost or other rich organic matter into your native soil.
Lavender plants survive well in dry conditions, so you’ll only have to water your plant when the top 2in of soil is so dry.
Promote vibrant blooms by regularly feeding with water-soluble plant food.
Harvest stems once they’re large enough for use. Avoid harvesting more than one-third of the lavender plant at a time.
Conclusion
In a nutshell, coffee grounds are not good for lavender plants and should not be used as organic fertilizers for lavenders because they are very high in acid and may adversely affect the growth and health of the lavender plants.