Lavender: after the snow and labelling issues Despite, or perhaps because of, the recent deep covering of snow in most areas, lavender, and in particular cherished hedges of the stuff, have featured prominently in the mailbox recently. Julia Johnstone sent me pictures of her French lavender hedges, planted last summer. Are they completely dead, she asks? I am more comfortable if I hedge my bets (sorry) when asked to give opinions based on photographs, also on the likelihood of marginally tender plants making miraculous recoveries after bad weather. But I would say that Julia's lavender has probably had it. There are several lavender varieties such as Lavandula stoechas, which have charming, "rabbit-ear" flowers, and are now often lumped together under the umbrella name of "French" lavender. None of them are reliably hardy in this country, but seldom is this fact made adequately clear on their labels. I suggest that if the worst comes to the worst, Julia replaces her plants with one of the tougher lavenders, namely Lavandula angustifolia - of which there are numerous varieties, including the easy to find and robust 'Hidcote. She should also bear in mind that other lavender prerequisite, just as important as full sun, namely sharply draining soil, since lavenders will survive lower temperatures if their roots are not waterlogged. In the part of Sussex where I live we are bedevilled by heavy soil, and many of us have to regard all lavender as "difficult" and dig in vast quantities of sharp sand or grit before planting it. Julia's problem brings to mind another issue. If, dear readers, I may be permitted a GOG (grumpy old gardener) moment, I will have a little moan about label-related issues, firstly the confusion caused by inadequate "marketing" names on plant labels. Looking for lavender in a garden centre in early summer, even an experienced gardener might well be seduced by healthy-looking vigorous (tunnel-grown) plants of a charming rabbit-ear lavender, simply named Lavender 'Papillon," totally unaware of its tender Lavandula stoechas parentage and that it is unlikely to survive without winter protection. As many know, to their cost, plant names can be confusing anyway: a friend of mine, who by his own admission is neither a gardener nor a Latin-lover, got his fingers singed when he went to a garden centre and asked for a "blue plumbago" to grow in a pot. What he really wanted was the heavenly pale blue tender thing from South Africa, Plumbago auriculata, but what he was sold was something entirely different - Ceratostigma willmottianum - in the same Plumbaginacae family and sometimes simply referred to as "blue plumbago," but in this case a hardy shrub with deep blue flowers, needing quite a big space outdoors. The whole plant family/plant naming/plant hybridising business is highly complicated and not made easier for us by pesky botanists who keep moving the goalposts, but I can't stress enough the need for gardeners to stay on their toes, do their homework and/or seek advice from knowledgeable people before they take any (expensive) plunges. A copy of the RHS Plant Finder, updated every year or so and also accessible online at rhs.org.uk, is also helpful.