I’m starting to feel less frantic and anxious than I have since spring and I think I know why. It isn’t because I’ve made a smooth transition from planting to maintaining. I haven’t. Yet. My list of to-dos has only gotten longer (plant, water, *weed, stake, weed, edit, deadhead, weed, repeat from *). I might chalk it up to being too tired to feel crazed if I hadn’t gotten regular doses of rainy day couch time. Credit for my calm should probably go to the miracle of aromatherapy.

When I was little, an aunt who thought I had a thing for amphibians (I didn’t particularly) gave me a frog-shaped bean bag filled with dried lavender. I remember holding its belly against my nose and filling my lungs until I worried that I’d wear it out, and slept (soundly) with it by my pillow for years. When I finally identified the fragrance I became determined to grow my own to ensure a constant supply. If not for lavender I might not have become a gardener.

Turns out it was an excellent, and nearly foolproof, gateway plant. Lavender is a Mediterranean mint family (Lamiaceae) shrub adapted to a harsh life on sunny, stony slopes. So its main cultural requirements are infertile well-drained soil, and full sun. Along my trajectory from novice gardener to amateur to professional, on the West Coast and home coast, with a range of conditions that always included at least a patch of lousy soil, I have managed to keep various species and cultivars of lavender alive. Except for the time I killed it.

Back in my first garden in Seattle, I was smitten by Spanish lavender (Lavandula stoechas), which has large butterfly-wing bracts atop each spike, a camphorous pungency, and a very relaxed habit. It isn’t hardy here but can be overwintered in a cool (above freezing) sunny plantry. I have grown several varieties of sweetly scented English or Munstead lavenders (Lavandula angustifolia), including ‘Hidcote Pink’ because I like the idea of a lavender that isn’t. (English lavender is the type most commonly used in cooking and baking.) But my favorite, for its robust size (2 to 3-feet tall and wide) and highly perfumed stems and flowers, is lavendin or French lavender (Lavandula × intermedia). I have loved deep purple ‘Grosso’ and the paler ‘Provence’ and dreamt each July of walking through fields of the stuff as far as the eye can see.

Lavender does not live forever. My ‘White Spikes’ lavendin, which has burnished silver foliage and milky flowers, is elderly at age 10 and has a contorted twist to its woody stems as if it might fall over into the driveway. From pre-dawn to dusk bumblebees work hundreds (thousands?) of flowers, joined by honeybees as soon as the sun casts shadows, and their collective effort throws a chill-pill scent directly into my chattering monkey brain. Last year I planted purple flowered ‘Phenomenal’ nearby as an eventual replacement. It is supposed to be more tolerant of humidity and extra hardy.

Not that I’ve had much trouble with hardiness. As long as winter drainage is sharp and snow load doesn’t snap them at the root, they’ll hang in — and as long as you resist the urge to deadhead past September. I learned the hard way that fall pruning encourages new growth that may be hit by a frost that will sink its teeth deep into stem tissue. Mea culpa. Maybe ‘Phenomenal’ can take it but I err now on the side of caution.

Better to shear those deadheads and new growth for shape in mid-spring well after winter has tucked tail. Left unpruned, lavender becomes leggy and refuses to be rejuvenated by cutting into old wood. To harvest flowers for drying, cut stems in the early hours of a beautiful blue day before the buds open (a couple of weeks ago). I used to do that. These days I deadhead after the bees have had their fill and hang a few spent-flower bundles upside down to dry in a closet. I’m going to try to remember to put those sprigs under my pillow before I start to feel anxious again.

Kristin Green is the horticulturist at Mount Hope Farm and author of 'Plantiful: Start Small, Grow Big with 150 Plants that Spread, Self-Sow, and Overwinter'. Follow her blog at trenchmanicure.com.