What Time of Year Is Best to Harvest Lavender for Sachets?

Summer Blooms

• Lavender flowers from early summer to late summer, depending on the species and the growing zone. Keep plants well-pruned to promote profuse flowering and don't fertilize the plants once flowers start to develop. A lavender plant may not flower at all its first year but subsequent years should see plenty of blooms. Keep the blooming lavender well irrigated so the plant produces an abundant amount of flowers and strongly scented oil.

Dried Flower Harvest

• For a sachet of loose lavender flowers, the best scent comes from a mix of barely open flowers and buds. There are a few ways to determine the optimum moment to snip the flowers. As the buds begin to open and there are just a few open on each stalk, flowers can be cut to dry for sachet. University of California horticulturists recommend cutting lavender for sachet when only one or two florets per stalk are open. The best time of day to harvest lavender is early morning, right after the dew has burned off. Cooler morning temperatures mean the fragrance of the flowers is at its highest potency.

Cutting Precautions

• When cutting flowers, check the stalks to be sure you don't damage the plant. The stems are tricolored. Nearest the flower, the stem is dark green; the middle of the stem is lighter green. It's important to clip the stem just at the juncture of the dark green and light green stem, below the first set of leaves. Leave the light green portion of the stem on the plant and never cut the lower brown part of the stem. The plant grows back from the brown area and you may spoil next year's harvest by cutting stems too long.

Post-Harvest Handling

• As soon as the lavender is cut, the flowers have to be dried in low light and quickly. Low light prevents color fading which matters if the sachet envelopes are sheer. Rapid drying prevents mildew or mold so the sweet scent of the flowers isn't compromised. The ideal way to dry flowers is in bunches of stalks, hung upside down in an area where air circulates freely.