Stand at the edge of our Richmond fields in late July and the tallest thing in front of you is Grosso. Long stems, grey-violet flower heads held well clear of the foliage, and enough height that a whole row moves together when the wind comes up off the river.
It is one of three cultivars we grow, and the only one of the three that is not English lavender.
Grosso is a lavandin, not a lavender
Botanically it is Lavandula × intermedia, a lavandin. Lavandins are crosses between English lavender (Lavandula angustifolia) and spike lavender (Lavandula latifolia). The cross happens without any help from anyone in parts of southeastern France and northeastern Spain, where the two parent species grow in the same ground.
The Grosso cultivar was introduced in France in 1972 by Pierre Grosso. It spread because it does two things unusually well: it flowers heavily, and it gives far more oil per plant than a true English lavender does. Most of the world’s lavandin crop is now Grosso. If you have ever bought lavender oil that was not sold by cultivar, there is a fair chance this is what was in the bottle.
It gets its size from the spike lavender side. A mature plant can reach around 90 centimetres when it is in flower, though how big it actually gets depends on the soil, the year, and how hard it was cut back last autumn.
The camphor is the whole story
The trade for all that yield is camphor. Lavandin oils run higher in camphor and 1,8-cineole than true lavender oils do, and that is what you are smelling when Grosso reads as sharper and greener than the other two. When most people picture the smell of lavender, they are picturing this one.
In a linen drawer or a bar of soap, that camphor is the reason it works. In a cup of tea it is the reason it does not. Grosso is technically edible, but it comes through as medicinal in food, so we do not grow it for the kitchen. That job belongs to Superblue, and the whole idea of culinary grading exists for exactly this reason.
Why it is the one we dry
Grosso keeps its scent after drying for longer than English lavender does. A Grosso sachet is still doing its job in a drawer a year later, which is why it is the cultivar we cut for our dried bouquets and flower-bud sachets instead of either of the other two.
The long stems earn their keep here as well. They cut cleanly, they bundle without snapping, and they hold their shape once they have hung upside down to dry.
When it blooms
At our Richmond farm, Grosso usually flowers from mid-July to mid-September. It is the last of our three to start and the last to finish, so it is still carrying colour in the fields well after Superblue has been cut.
Weather moves those dates every year. Check the bloom calendar before you drive out if you want to see a particular cultivar, or read our guide to when lavender blooms in BC for the month-by-month version.
Like other lavandins it wants full sun and soil that drains. Once established it will get through a dry spell without complaining. What it will not forgive is sitting in wet ground over the winter.
What we make with it
We harvest and steam-distil each cultivar separately, because putting all three through the still together would flatten out the differences that make any of them worth growing.
Grosso goes into our dried bundles and sachets, and it is the boldest of the three options for our essential oil and hydrosol. It also turns up across soap, body care and anything meant to scent a room rather than a person. If you want a room to smell unmistakably of lavender from the doorway, this is the one to reach for.
How it compares to our other two
- Grosso is a lavandin. Bold, herbaceous, camphor-forward. Best for drying, for linen and for rooms.
- Superblue is English lavender, low in camphor, sweet and honeyed. The culinary one, and the gentlest on skin.
- Melissa is English lavender with a citrus lift. Our smallest harvest, and the one people reach for at bedtime.
If you are choosing between the oil and the hydrosol rather than between cultivars, that is a different question and we answered it here. For the wider family tree, including the French and Spanish lavenders we do not grow, see types of lavender.
Come and smell the difference
From the far end of the field the rows look like one continuous sweep of purple. Walk down between them and they stop being one thing. Grosso is taller, greener in the nose and a shade further toward blue than the English lavenders beside it.
Stand at a Grosso row, then at a Superblue row, and you will not need anyone to explain the difference again.