Topic: lavender dying - what could it be?

[pigeonseed]

I planted two small French lavender plants not too far apart, one is doing fine, one had flowers which turned brown, curled over and wilted. I thought at first it was just something to do with being transplanted in hot weather. It's got worse and worse and seems to be dying.

apparently they don;t like clay, but the soil is mainly garden centre type compost - whoever made the raised beds at our new house filled them with it.

I've read that the only disease they get is shab and most of them are resistant.

could it be cat's wee? But next door's cats use the whole border as one big toilet - so why would this one plant suffer alone?

any ideas? I've never known lavender to be anything but indestructable!

[ceres]

Have you seen any insects around - our lavenders have had big infestations of rosemary beetle.

[pigeonseed]

I haven't seen any - I'll look tomorrow, and maybe I should take a photo as well, in case that helps identify the disease.

[Rosa_Mundi]

It could be cats if they've picked this plant as a territorial marker and are spraying it repeately. The solution (providing it's not too far gone) would be to drench the plant to dilute what's there and then put a temporary wire cage around it so that the cats can't reach it, and see if it recovers.

[manicscousers]

I always find our french lavender doesn't do as well as english lavender, maybe our soil's not suitable ?