Botanical Lavender (botanical style)

English lavender, Lavandula angustifolia, is in the mint family and comes from the mountains of the western Mediterranean, despite its name. It's the hardiest kind and the one grown for scent and oil. Tiny glands on the leaves and flower stalks hold the aromatic oils. Lavender was grown as a field crop around Mitcham in Surrey from the eighteenth century, and its narrow grey leaves and slender spikes have long suited the precise line of a botanical drawing.

Plant lavender in April or May, in full sun and soil that drains freely; it's wet winter ground, not cold, that usually kills it. Space plants about 30 to 45 centimetres apart for a low hedge. Trim every year in late August, once flowering is over, cutting off the old flower stalks and a little of the leafy growth. Don't cut back into bare brown wood, which rarely sprouts again. Old plants grow woody and open with age, and it's best to replace them.

Three stems of lavender, with their grey-green leaves, sit on a cream ground in this study. Grouping a few stems shows the plant's upright habit and the contrast between soft foliage and slim flower spikes. The pale ground lets that grey-green colour, so typical of lavender, read clearly.