leave it alone.. water properly ...

and if you decide to replant it .. do it in fall ... not july/august for most of us ... though i dont think i saw where you were.. big city name ...

drainage is more of a winter issue ... so moving it in fall might be an idea ...

just be patient .... it will either flower or it wont.. but digging it up isnt going to make anything happen faster .... and it might insure it doesnt bloom this season ...

ken

ps: sand does NOT add drainage.. and can turn a poor clay soil into cement ... but.. you dont mention your base soil type .. prior to all your amending ....

The ground already had garden soil when I bought the house but I’m not sure when it was added. So I added more on top but the base soil is native clay which I found when I dug about a feet down. The top 12" does not have clay. I’m in zone 9b CA.

I thought my profile showed the zone for garden forums. Any idea how I can make that appear?

Make it part of your name as I have,

tj

Depending on what kind of lavender one is growing, it can be in bloom in my area from late April through to early fall. Spanish lavender (L. stoechas) has the longest bloom season - pretty much all summer - followed by the hybrids (L. xintermedia), which are just starting to bloom now and will continue through to about September. English lavender has the shortest bloom season and is just at the tail end now. But the flowerheads will continue to look good for weeks.

The OP is in California, 9B... From what I remember from CA lavender farms, the early varieties start in mid-May, followed by June and some early July bloomers. If OP's plant is not showing any baby stalks now, my guess they're not coming this year.

I remember buying the Spanish lavender for its long bloom season. The leaves are super fragrant if that means anything.

interior yellowing and browning is annual .. and normal ... as the plant gets bigger.. no sun can get in there.. so they fail ...

lower yellowing.. the oldest leaves.. is usually directly related to the stress of transplanting ... that minor time when the roots were disturbed and couldnt supply all the requisite water the plant may have needed ... i would call this normal also based on what it went thru ...

after transplant.. always look to the newest freshest growth to see the current condition.. as long as that stays rather healthy looking then you should be all set ...

also ... if it doesnt seem to be growing as much as you want after a transplant.. its rather easy to think that it was the transplant that caused the pause ...

i dont think you have anything to worry about regarding the MINIMAL off color leaves ...

zone is simply lowest predicted winter temp ... really doesnt tell us anything else .. big city name is better .. as it gives us all kinds of info that we can work with ....

ken

ps: try perking your soil when you have nothing better to do ... your top soil sounds pretty good ... but to see how it all works.. perk it... we are looking for how it drains ... it real easy.. watch a couple of these.. then go play in the mud...

https://duckduckgo.com/?q=perk+garden+soil&t=ffsb&iar=videos&iax=videos&ia=videos

I'm in zone 4a and my lavender is going like gangbusters right now (photos from today). One thing I've noticed, is that it really doesn't like a lot of water, so I don't water it at all. When I'm watering the plants around it I leave the lavender out. I also don't add any topsoil or compost near it because it's happiest in my dry, loamy soil. I agree with JoJo, let it dry out before watering again.. and like I said, I don't ever water my lavender. Like, ever!

Good luck!!

Thanks for the info Shauna. Your lavender looks amazing!

thank you! keep us posted!! Mine is a few years old, so I'm thinking yours might be focusing more on establishing its root system and not so much on the flowering because otherwise, it looks perky and healthy! I bet next year it's going to explode with blooms! I'm in the same boat as you with my bare root poppies... I stare at them and stare at them.. willing them to bloom! lol. But I'm guessing they won't until next year. Best of luck!

Lol I hope so too. Good luck with your poppies :)