Lavender comes from the sundrenched rocky slopes of the Mediterranean where it gets very little water in summer. I'm afraid your description reads like instructions for ' how not to grow lavender'. I'd say yours is dying from well-meaning but misplaced mollycoddling..... So....

1. leave out the manure.
2. plant the next one in unamended soil
3. water table at 2 ft is practically a bog. In my garden I think I'd have to go 10 times that depth to hit water. 4. find a fast draining, sunny location.
5. never mind its being pot bound - just tease out the roots a bit (but don't fiddle with them too much).
6. I'd not be too hopeful for the long-term prospects of your rosemary and sage either in those conditions.

Good luck.

Well, I guess I'm done with lavender then.
If I don't add manure nothing will grow besides grass. My yard doesn't have top soil it's mostly solid clay so even with the 2ft water table (& the fact that we as seated at the bottom of a hill) it is hard to dig in & not particularly wet.
Today the rosemary is going into a sunken pot in a raised bed to help with drainage. My sage is not huge by any means but it's healthy & happy so I think it's going to stay in the ground.

Thank you :)

You don't have to give up on the lavender!

You could try growing lavender in a clay pot OR in a location with less manure (4 cups of it to 1 cup soil is a bit too rich)

It doesn't like winter wet, but can handle freezes. Also, only water 1st year, then okay w/ occasional rainfall in my climate (wet winter/dry summer). In my area I was told that most lavender dies from too much moisture.

I've had it overwinter last year in an amended clay bed, but the manure was already composted & not recently applied. I planted it a bit high & it was on a slight slope.

I lost several clay pots of lavender in my unheated greenhouse. I don't know if it was because I let them get too dry or because of the sudden cold snap in November & plants didn't have time to wind down from growing all summer. I overwintered them the year before on my front porch out of the winter rains, so I had though the greenhouse would be ideal.

Mine seems happy in 2 parts sand to 1 part compost. It likes dry, sandy soil. I've got mostly clay so I built a raised bed specifically for lavender and rosemary. It overwintered here, including a stint of -60. I lost 1 out of 6, and that was because my toddler sat on it in the spring.

I knew our lack of rain the past few weeks was getting bad when the lavender wilted!