

Aside from its great scent and natural beauty, here’s another reason to grow organic lavender in your garden: to freshen your laundry! Here are three ways to use lavender from your garden to freshen laundry. And, you can make all of these yourself! We’ve even included tips to harvest and dry lavender, so you can get the best quality of lavender flowers.

3 Ways to Use Lavender to Freshen Laundry

1. Lavender Clothesline

Lavender makes a great clothesline. Back in the old days, people use to lay freshly laundered items like sheets and tablecloths on their lavender hedges to dry. As they did so, they became infused with the lavender oil in the bushes. The result? Wonderfully scented items that added a little spice to the daily life of the household. This is a perfectly safe process; it doesn’t hurt either the flowers or the laundry that’s laid atop them.

2. Lavender Sachet

Try making a sachet to scent drawers and linen closets. You can sew a sachet or purchase ready made herb bags to make sachets. Simply dry lavender flowers and fill the bags to freshen laundry in dressers or closets.

Or, try throwing a muslin sachet bag in the dryer instead of a dryer sheet. Here are directions to making DIY Lavender Dryer Sachets. They will last in the dryer about 6-8 loads.

3. Lavender Water Linen Spray

Often linen spray is made out of essential oils. If you don’t have a distiller to extract the essential oils, try making lavender water linen spray with only the lavender flowers. This is a great spray for sheets and towels, or spray on clothing to freshen. Here are directions: How to Make Lavender Water.

To lengthen the shelf life you can add alcohol or simply store in the refrigerator.

Tips to Harvesting and Drying Lavender

Harvest lavender in the morning, as flowers are just opening. This is the time the flowers have the most oils and will smell the strongest.

Make sure lavender plants have dried from morning dew to reduce moisture.

The strongest scented lavender flowers are just after buds have formed, but the flowers have not opened.

Rubber bands are easy to use at the end of stems to secure bundles.

Lavender is dry when center lavender stems of bundle are dry.

Store dried lavender flowers in a mason jar with lid to keep fresh.

Don’t miss our own article with more harvesting tips: How To Plant and Harvesting lavender

Want to learn more about using lavender from the garden?

Check out these helpful resources:

Lavender from University of Illinois Extension

Growing and Using Lavender from University of Vermont Extension