SWEET LAVENDER.

New Zealand Graphic, Volume XII, Issue XIII, 31 March 1894, Page 309

SWEET LAVENDER.

We hear so much of old lavender bushes in country gardens, prized for their antiquity by the owners, that I learnt with surprise that, for market purposes, plants are considered useless after the third year. The first year sees them small, and bearing little, if any, flower ; the second they are in their prime, and should be a mass of blossom ; and the third year they begin to go off, and cuttings from them are taken for replanting, and the old plants taken up as useless. One lives and learns ! Lavender should be thoroughly dried before it is put into bags, such as our great grandmothers loved to stow among the linen. And if the scent is to be preserved for any length of time, it should after drying be put in a box and left until the flowers shake off crisp and dry, leaving the stalks separate. Then if put in bags or made into the many delicate little fancy articles it will keep its sweetness for many a long day. Fans, sacks, and diminutive torpedoes are among the prettiest ways of making up lavender ; for the

former either white or lavender coloured muslin, or better still chiffon, is used for the fan, and the sticks with the same coloured ribbon threaded among them for the fan handle ; for this, lavender on the stalks, not separate, is better, the beads forming the fan inside the chiffon. Sacks are more simple, being merely a bag tied at the neck with ribbon. For what, for lack of a better name, I call torpedoes, the flower heads are placed inside the case made of stalks with ribbon threaded in and out of them, and the perfume passes through it. Lavender, whether in bags or fancy articles, requires to be shaken pretty frequently, or the scent will probably be faint ; a good shake will bring it back sweet as ever. Lavender stalks, when properly dried, are most agreeable. I always keep mine to burn to scent the room in winter time, when there are no flowers. They burn slowly, and if laid upon a metal tray will smoulder on for a long time ; a few stalks make quite a suilicient scent for an ordinary room. In sick rooms they are a boon, for the smell is so much cleaner and more natural than the pastilles and other things which offend the patient's nose, and only clear the atmosphere for a comparatively short time.— Exchange.