Grosso Lavender.

Description

Grosso Lavender is a tall and elegant lavender variety, often growing higher than English Lavender. During its blooming season it stands out beautifully with long silver-green foliage and grey-violet buds, creating a graceful and refreshing presence in the field.

Botanically it is Lavandula × intermedia — a lavandin. Lavandins are crosses between English lavender (Lavandula angustifolia) and spike lavender (Lavandula latifolia), and they inherit the size and yield of the second parent. Long stems, big flower heads, and a great deal more oil per plant than a true English lavender gives.

What lavandin actually means for the scent

The trade-off for that yield is camphor. Lavandin is markedly higher in it than English lavender, which is why Grosso smells sharper, greener and more bracing — and why, when most people picture the smell of lavender, they are picturing this.

That camphor is a feature outdoors, in a drawer or in a bar of soap. It is a problem in a cup. If you are looking for lavender to cook or brew with, you want our Superblue instead — the culinary grading exists for exactly this reason. Grosso is technically edible, but its camphor comes through as medicinal in food, and we do not grow it for the kitchen.

Benefits

Grosso combines qualities commonly associated with both English Lavender and Spike Lavender. Its fresh, uplifting aroma makes it a popular choice for self-care routines, relaxation products and everyday moments of comfort.

It also holds its scent longer than English lavender once dried, which is why it is the cultivar we cut for bundles and sachets. A Grosso sachet is still doing its job in a drawer a year later.

Applications

Grosso essential oil is widely used in skincare and body-care products such as soap, shampoo, body lotion and massage blends. Its refreshing fragrance also suits home and lifestyle products — laundry detergent, dish soap, room sprays and outdoor-inspired products. A beautiful choice for customers who value sustainable ingredients and farm-grown self-care.

On the farm, Grosso is what goes into our dried bouquets and flower-bud sachets, and it is the boldest of the three options for our essential oil and hydrosol. If you want a room to smell unmistakably of lavender, this is the one.

How it compares to our other two

We grow three cultivars and distil each separately, because blending them would flatten out exactly the differences that make each one worth having.

• Grosso — a lavandin. Bold, herbaceous, camphor-forward. Best for drying, for linen and for rooms.
• Superblue — English lavender, low camphor, sweet and honeyed. The culinary one, and the gentlest on skin.
• Melissa — 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.