Lavender is a magical plant! Its beautiful aroma helps promote relaxation and it can be used to make tea or for fun beauty DIY projects. Learn how to dry lavender from scratch so that you can use it for tea and at home all year long.
Lavender Uses
- make lavender tea by letting a tsp of dried lavender buds seep for about 5-8 minutes in hot water (about a cup). You can find a more detailed guide on how to make lavender tea here.
- to get rid of moths in your closet – fill a few sachets with dried lavender and leave them in your closet or drawers.
- to make bath bombs and soap – lavender is often used in aromatherapy to promote calmness and you can easily incorporate it into your beauty DIY projects. Here’s a tutorial on how to make lavender soap and another one about how to make lavender bath bombs.
- infuse drinks or food (caution: not all lavender can safely be ingested, so make sure to buy organic lavender or grow your own). Here’s a recipe for lavender macarons that you might want to try.
Lavender Health Benefits
According to Healthline lavender has some properties that can be beneficial for health (although not backed by science):
- commonly used for anxiety, to relieve stress and prevent depression
- to help with insomnia and sleep disturbances
- lavender has also been used for centuries to treat hair loss
- to alleviate mild pain after surgery
Why Dry Lavender
The goal of drying plants, in general, is to remove the moisture from the plant, while preserving the nutrients and aromas. You don’t want to dry your herbs and flowers just to prevent them from going bad. You want to maintain the nutrition and flavor of the fresh plant, even better – you want to condense it. When drying your own plants you get to control the ingredients and methods used and this leads to a better quality of the final product.
Drying Lavender: How To Dry Lavender
Lavender thrives in sunny locations and in well-drained soil when it’s hot outside. Once it’s time for harvest, drying is a great option to preserve your lavender, so you can keep it around for at least a year.
Air Drying
To air dry lavender bundle the stems and hang the plants upside down in a place that is dry with good air circulation and not in direct sunlight. Direct sunlight will harm the aroma inside the plant.
Another option would be to spread the lavender evenly in a single layer over a screen window or a herb drying rack to allow the air to circulate. This way you can achieve even drying and prevent the formation of mold. This method would require more space than bundling your lavender.
It would take your lavender a few weeks to be fully dry.
Drying In The Oven
If you want to speed things up and save space you can also choose to dry your lavender in the oven. This way your dried lavender will be ready in hours.
You’ll need to spread the lavender evenly over a baking sheet in single layer, not stacking lavender on top of each other. Set your oven at low temperature – 40-50C or 105-120F and let the lavender dry for a few hours. Flip the sprigs throughout the process to speed things up and to allow even drying. Take out of the oven once the herb is fully dry.
Storing Lavender
Once your lavender is completely dry remove the flowers from the stems. Store them in an airtight container in a dry and cool place, without direct sunlight. I like to use old cans or old jars for this purpose. If you’re too busy (or honetly, kind lazy) to remove the flowers from the stems – them store like that, but you’ll need more space and you’ll have to do it when you’re about to use the lavender.
I hope you leaned something new today, lavender is truly a great plant to have at home!
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