A simple spring cleanup could be the difference between a scraggly lavender plant and a rounded shrub covered in blooms by early July.
That's the message from gardening educator Bethie (@blueacregarden), whose TikTok pruning tutorial is getting attention from home gardeners hoping to revive tired-looking lavender.
In a short video posted May 14, Bethie walked viewers through how she prunes lavender in spring to encourage a fuller shape and more flowers. The clip has already drawn about 38,000 views, more than 1,600 likes, and dozens of comments from people asking whether their woody or winter-worn plants can still bounce back.
Her first rule is simple: Remove last year's dried flower stalks. "The barest of minimum you have to do is to remove all of the old flowering stalks from last year," Bethie explains in the video. She recommends tracing each old stem back to where fresh green growth begins, then cutting there at an angle.
@blueacregarden Your lavender is a mess! Here's how to clean your lavender up in the springtime for well pruned, rounded shape. No floppy half bald lavender here! #gardening #TikTokLearningCampaign #homegarden #gardenhacks #lavender ♬ Morning Brew Jazz - NonLeo
For plants that have become woody and sparse in the middle, she also suggests selectively cutting back some older stems to let newer growth in the crown take over. For gardeners who want a tidier, denser shrub, she says removing roughly one-third of the plant's size can help reshape it.
Lavender is a favorite in home gardens because it looks good, smells great, can repel unwanted pests, and keeps beds and borders lively through summer. But without pruning, it can become floppy, half-bald, and overly woody — tempting gardeners to replace plants that still have plenty of life left in them.
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Learning how to care for existing plants can save money and reduce waste, especially for people building out larger home landscapes. Gardening in general can also offer major everyday benefits, from physical activity and stress relief to lower grocery bills when people expand into edible plants. Homegrown food often tastes better, too, making gardening skills useful well beyond ornamental beds.
The comments under Bethie's video show just how common these lavender problems are. One person wrote that their plant was "extremely woody" but still blooming, while others asked about winter dieback and misshapen growth. That makes a forgiving pruning method especially helpful for beginners.
If your lavender looks messy this spring, start with the oldest flower stalks. Look for dry stems from last year, follow them down to where this year's green growth starts, and snip there. Bethie says spring pruning lavender is "very forgiving," so gardeners don't need to be overly timid.
Even plants that look rough may still recover if pruned early enough.
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As Bethie put it: "Believe it or not, this plant has looked really sad in years past … There have been years when I've had to prune it all the way to the ground. But I still had flowers because I pruned early enough in the summer months."
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