The Mediterranean Summer festival at Kew ran during the summer of
2007. Lavender - History
Lavandula canariensis
Lavender has long been used by humankind. In the middle ages lavenders and other herbs were grown in monastery gardens and were used to flavour foods, especially meats. There is even evidence of powdered lavender being used as a condiment.
The Benedictine Abbess Hildegard of Bingen gives the earliest written mention of lavender in her Physica, in which she wrote about the medicinal properties of herbs. She described lavender as having a strong odour and many virtues including being useful as a liver remedy. It is also believed that lavender was commonly used as a medicinal herb in Wales from the 13th century.
Lavender was planted in French pleasure gardens and medicinal gardens from the 1300s, while it was also commonly gathered from the wild for its healing properties.
Although it is widely believed that the Romans may have brought lavender to Britain, it did not continue to be cultivated after they left. It could have been reintroduced around 1265 when Eleanor of Provence was Queen of England. At this time it was nearly always grown for its uses as a strewing herb, an antiseptic and insect repellent rather than as an ornamental plant.
The Huguenots renewed the popularity of growing lavender in the 1500s. By 1568 it was noted that Lavender stoechas was being cultivated on a large scale in the west country. Herb gardens were very popular between the late 1400s to the mid 1600s and reached their peak during the Elizabethan reign (1553-1603). By the late 1700s lavender was commonly being grown as a commercial crop and used as an ornamental plant.
During the reign of Charles I (1600-49) a young man by the name of Yardley began to manufacture soap using lavender perfume. The House of Yardley was established properly at the end of the 1700s and flourished supplying lavender, soaps and cosmetics. From the early 1900s they began to concentrate on producing perfumes and demand was such that by the 1950s they became the largest manufacturer of lavender products in the world.
Gertrude Jekyll was one of the greatest ambassadors for the use of lavenders in gardens. She planted a lavender hedge which she used for cut flowers, and also planted it in her 'grey garden', and often used it in her commissions. She introduced many new plants including Lavandula angustifolia 'Munstead'.
Lavender is now grown commercially in many countries including North America, Australia, New Zealand, Japan, Africa as well as France and the UK.
(The Genus Lavandula: Tim Upson & Susyn Andrews)
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