Growing Lavender in Florida: 9 Varieties That Thrive

Growing lavender in Florida sounds like a trick question. Lavender wants dry air, gritty soil, and a cool Mediterranean summer. Florida gives you bath-water humidity from June through October and a soil that holds water like a wet sponge. So the short answer is yes, but only a handful of varieties will play along.

Here is the shortcut: Spanish lavender, French lavender, and a few tough hybrids like Phenomenal handle Florida fine. English lavender (the classic one you see in Provence calendars) will sulk for a season and quit by July. We killed two before we figured that out, and we’re not the only ones. Pick the right variety, and the rest falls into place.

Below are the nine varieties worth your soil, plus the care rules that keep them alive through a Florida summer. Containers are allowed. In fact, we would recommend them. Something about a lavender plant in a wide terracotta pot feels like a small win over the humidity, which is the energy we are going for. (If you love a fragrant Florida-friendly plant, our guide to growing jasmine is the perfect companion piece.)

These Nine Lavenders Actually Thrive in Florida

1. Spanish Lavender (Lavandula stoechas)

If you plant one lavender in Florida, make it this one. Spanish lavender is the most heat-tolerant of the bunch, and the UF/IFAS Pasco County extension specifically names it as “Best for Central Florida”. You will know it by the little pink or purple petal-bracts that tuft out of the top of each flower spike. We call them rabbit ears. They look like someone drew eyelashes on a lavender plant, and we cannot get enough of them.

It blooms earlier than other lavenders (late winter through spring in most of the state), and in Zone 9 it will usually hold on as a short-lived perennial for two or three years before it needs replacing. Full sun, gritty well-drained soil, and no mulch sitting against the stem. That last part is the one we forgot the first time, and the stem rotted at the base in about six weeks. Lesson learned, lavender gone.

2. French Lavender (Lavandula dentata)

French lavender is the one with the small teeth on the edges of its gray-green leaves. “Dentata” literally means toothed, which is the kind of plant-nerd detail we cannot stop telling people. It carries pale blue-violet flower spikes with a tiny tuft on top, similar to Spanish but softer, and it blooms almost year-round in the frost-free parts of Florida.

Our favorite part: it handles humidity better than most. Our favorite part #2: it keeps a tidy mounding shape with a quick trim after each bloom cycle. Plant it where you will brush against it on the way to the mailbox. The fragrance is lighter than English lavender, more piney and herbal, and it is the exact kind of thing you want to catch on your sleeve.

3. Phenomenal Lavender (Lavandula × intermedia ‘Phenomenal’)

Phenomenal was bred specifically for heat and humidity, and the name is a little on the nose. It is a lavandin (an English x spike-lavender hybrid) released onto the market about fifteen years ago, and it quickly became what lavender growers in the Southeast reach for. The flower wands are long, the color is a deep violet-blue, and the silvery foliage stays good-looking even when nothing is blooming.

It still needs well-drained soil and real sun. A humidity-tolerant lavender is still a sun-loving lavender. In North and Central Florida it will perennialize for you if you put it in a raised bed or a large pot. In South Florida we would treat it like a one-season splurge plant. For a lavender that will give you armloads of cuttings through spring, worth the money and the pot space.

4. Fernleaf Lavender (Lavandula multifida)

Fernleaf is the one we would pick on looks alone. The leaves are finely divided, soft gray-green, and look more like a dusty miller crossed with a lavender than a classic lavender silhouette. The flower spikes branch into three heads at the top (hence “multifida”), which gives them a little chandelier shape.

It is a true subtropical lavender and loves Florida the most of any on this list. Grow it in a wide, shallow pot with plenty of grit. It will not tolerate frost, so if you are in Zone 8 or cooler, bring it onto a sheltered porch for a few winter nights. The fragrance is on the piney side, which some people love and some people do not. We are in the love camp.

5. Sweet Lavender (Lavandula × heterophylla)

Sweet lavender is a cross between French and English lavenders that leaned toward the French parent in a way that is really good for us. Compact silver-gray leaves with a tiny bit of toothing at the tips, slim lilac flower spikes, and a sweeter fragrance than the other Mediterraneans on this list (the clue is in the name).

Treat it like Spanish lavender: full sun, excellent drainage, moderate water, and a trim after bloom. It is not especially long-lived in the ground anywhere in Florida, but it does nicely in a tall terracotta pot you can keep up on pot feet. We have one on the porch step that has been reliable for three Florida summers, which is as much as we can ask of any lavender.

6. Goodwin Creek Grey (Lavandula × ginginsii)

Goodwin Creek Grey is woollier and silverier than the rest. The foliage reads as grey more than green, which looks beautiful against a terracotta pot or a painted porch rail. It carries deep purple-blue flower spikes and it will bloom almost nonstop through the growing season.

White Flower Farm and a few Southern nurseries recommend it specifically for heat and humidity, which tracks with what we have seen. It is the lavender we would hand a new gardener who wanted something forgiving. Keep it in a pot in richer soil than you would think (it tolerates a little organic matter where other lavenders will not), and do not overwater. The foliage will tell you if you did.

7. Canary Island Lavender (Lavandula canariensis)

This one gets less attention than it deserves. The native range is literally the subtropical volcanic islands off Africa, so Florida feels like a reasonable approximation. The leaves are fernier than Fernleaf, the branching flower spikes are longer, and it will grow into a knee-high rounded shrub in a season if the pot is big enough.

If you are in Zone 10 or 11 (South Florida), this is one of the few lavenders that may perennialize for you in the ground. We would still put it in a container, partly because we are pot people and partly because it looks terrific spilling out of a large concrete planter on a patio corner.

8. Provence Lavender (Lavandula × intermedia ‘Provence’)

Provence is the classic cut-flower lavender you see in long purple field photos, and it is a lavandin like Phenomenal, so it is tougher than straight English lavender. Long pale-violet wands, a knee-high rounded habit, and a sweet-but-camphor fragrance that is heaven if you like it.

The Florida caveat: Provence is not quite as humidity-proof as Phenomenal. In North Florida, in a raised bed with real drainage, you will get a few good seasons. In Central Florida, put it in a pot and expect a shorter life. In South Florida, save your money for Spanish, Fernleaf, or Canary Island. Provence is a lavender we love from afar in the Gulf Coast.

9. Mona Lavender (Plectranthus ‘Mona Lavender’)

Technically not a lavender at all (apologies, botanists). Mona Lavender is a Plectranthus hybrid out of South Africa that has been adopted into every “can I grow lavender in a humid climate” conversation because it looks and behaves like a lavender and does not mind the weather. The leaves are glossy green with a dramatic deep-purple underside, which is a feature plant on its own merit.

Mona wants partial shade, richer soil, and more regular watering than any true lavender on this list, which is why it is not the right choice if you were sold on the dry Mediterranean look. If you have a shaded porch in Florida and you want “lavender energy” on your front step, grow Mona in a pot and you will adore her. (She is also one of the few plants on this list we would happily grow as an indoor herb if the light is right. See our indoor herb garden ideas if that is your lane.)

How to Actually Grow It in Florida

Pots Beat the Ground (Most of the Time)

If we could give you one piece of advice, it would be this: skip the in-ground bed for your first lavender and plant it in a pot. Florida soils hold water the way we hold grudges, which is to say reliably and a little too long. A pot lets you control the mix, the drainage, and the location when a summer tropical storm rolls through.

Pick a wide terracotta pot with real drainage holes (not one hole, several), mix a bagged cactus-and-succulent soil with sharp sand or pumice about 50/50, and set the pot on feet to keep the base off the ground. A pot full of lavender on a sunny front step is a mood. See our front porch planter ideas for how to make it feel finished.

Where to Put Them (Sun, Spacing, Airflow)

Lavender wants the sunniest spot you have. UF/IFAS lists six to eight hours of direct sun as the minimum, with some afternoon shade recommended in hot climates. South- or west-facing walls work beautifully. The cooler, dapple-sun side of the yard is where our first lavender died a slow, sad death, and we do not recommend reenacting it.

Airflow matters almost as much as sun. Lavender hates stagnant humid air. Space plants at least two feet apart (farther if you can), keep them off any wall where air will not circulate, and resist the urge to crowd the pot. Three plants in a twenty-inch pot sounds generous. In Florida it is a fungal infection waiting to happen.

Water Rarely, Drain Always

The fastest way to kill a lavender is to love it with the hose. Water deeply when the top inch of soil is dry, and then stop. In a Florida summer that might still be once a week; in a Florida fall you may not water at all for weeks at a stretch. The Old Farmer’s Almanac recommends watering once or twice weekly only until buds form, and then dropping back hard.

Mulch the base with pea gravel or a thin layer of oyster shell, not bark. Bark holds moisture against the stem and rots the crown. Pea gravel reflects heat up into the leaves (which they like) and keeps the base dry (which they love). The first lavender we properly kept alive was the first one we gravel-mulched. Not a coincidence.

The 8-8-8 Rule

You may have seen the 8-8-8 rule floating around gardening blogs. It is a pruning shorthand: on the eighth of August (the eighth month), cut back by about eight inches. It works beautifully on English lavender in a northern climate. On Spanish, French, Fernleaf, Sweet, and Canary Island lavenders, which are the ones you are actually growing in Florida, we skip it. Those bloom on the current season’s growth and want a lighter shaping after each bloom cycle, not an August haircut.

For lavandins like Phenomenal and Provence, you can approximate the rule. Trim by roughly one third of the plant’s height after the main spring bloom, and again lightly in early fall. Do not cut into bare woody stems. Lavender rarely regrows from bare wood, and a hard cut will kill the shape for good.

Lavender in Florida is one of those plants we were told we could not grow, and it turned out we could. We just had to pick the right varieties and give up our Provence fantasies. Spanish lavender in a wide pot is the starter we would hand anyone. Phenomenal is the one for a bigger bed. Mona is for the shaded front step where real lavender would sulk. Pick two to start, watch how they react through one Florida summer, and you will know which to buy more of next year.

If you would like to pair your lavender with plants that actually belong here, our Florida-friendly native plant garden ideas is where we would start. And if any of these varieties worked for you (or if you killed one spectacularly like we did), we want to hear which one and what you think went wrong. Tell us in the comments.