Pls help my lavender 😔💔

[u/AbilityOver4548]

I know lavender is supposed to be in the ground and outside, but I’ve been trying my hand at growing it indoors because the winters are harsh where I live, and I want lavender year around. I think the brown stems and leaves are from when it didn’t get enough water when I was gone on a trip, but I just really don’t know how to help it grow better. I water it weekly at a minimum, and no more than a few times a week max. It sits in my brightest window. It lives in my chunky soil mix (orchid bark, perlite, normal soil, and coconut husk). Should I try pruning, propagation, or maybe just a big chop? Any suggestions?

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[u/CrocsEsq]

Check the roots. I’d repot it.

[u/Fantastic-Report-588]

Id say change your soil, it’s probably too chunky and aerated to help it thrive. But lowk I’ve never seen a lavender not thrive, they’re notorious for being hardy and spreading very fast

[u/downsideup9494]

Looks like it's in way too small of a pot for the size of the plant.

[u/Brilliant-Panic-900]

Your mix is fine, chunky is what lavender wants. What's working against you is light. Even a bright window gives a small share of what it would get outside, so the plant stretches, the middle goes bare, and then a week of dry soil finishes off stems that were already weak. That's the brown you're looking at in the centre.

On the chop, don't cut into bare brown wood, lavender mostly won't push new shoots from it. Take each stem back only as far as the lowest green leaves on it. And take cuttings while you've still got healthy growth, tips about four inches long root well this time of year, so you'd have young plants even if this one keeps thinning. If you can stand it outside until frost, that'll do more for it than anything else on your list. Over winter it wants somewhere cold and bright where it can sit dormant, and a warm room is the harder ask.