When Is the Best Time to Harvest Lavender?

The best time to harvest lavender for scent is just as the lower flowers on each spike start to open, rather than waiting for the whole spike to be in full bloom, and the best time of day is mid morning, once any dew has dried but before the heat of the afternoon has begun to evaporate the essential oils sitting in the flower.

I time my own harvest around this every single year, because getting it even slightly wrong genuinely changes how strong the scent turns out to be.

Why timing matters more than people expect

Lavender's scent lives in tiny oil glands on the flower and calyx. Those oils are at their most concentrated right as the flowers begin opening rather than once they are fully spent, and they are also more easily lost to evaporation once the day heats up. Cut too late in the season, or too late in the day, and you are harvesting a plant that has already given a good portion of its scent to the air.

How to actually cut it

Use clean, sharp secateurs or scissors rather than tearing the stems, and cut with a decent length of stem attached, since this makes bundling for drying far easier later. Cutting on a dry morning, after any dew has burned off, avoids trapping moisture in the bundle, which can lead to mould during drying.

What I do with my own harvest

My lavender does double duty. Some of it is bundled and dried to become the botanical element of my fragrance free range, sitting alongside oat rather than any added scent. Separately, lavender essential oil, properly distilled, is what scents the lavender bar in my essential oil range. Cut by hand, from a bed I tend myself, then dried in the shed before it goes anywhere near a soap pot.

What happens if you harvest too late

Left too long, lavender flowers fade, drop and lose a significant amount of their scent to the air before you ever get near them with a pair of secateurs. The plant will still look pretty from a distance, but a harvest taken this late tends to be noticeably weaker once dried.

Frequently asked questions

What time of day should you cut lavender?

Mid morning, once dew has dried but before the afternoon heat begins pulling scent out of the flowers.

Should you harvest lavender in full bloom?

No, the strongest scent tends to come just as the lower flowers on each spike start opening, rather than once

the whole spike is fully out.

Can you harvest lavender more than once a season?

Many varieties will produce a smaller secondary flush if cut back properly after the first harvest, though the main cut remains the priority each year.

Everything I cut from my own lavender bed becomes part of my soap range, either dried as a botanical or distilled as an essential oil, and both are on my website.