Adding a little bit of lavender in your life
Enjoy smelling, seeing and holding the latest housing trend with these 13 items
Writer’s note on June 9, 2025: A few days after writing this post, I just kept wondering about the difference between a lilac bush and a lavender plant. Although they’re both purple and bushy when they bloom, the leaves on a lilac tree are broad and heart-shaped. Lavender, on the other hand, has thin, needle-like leaves. Although the tree mentioned below is brown all around right now (and at the time the arborist was working in our lawn) and I can’t see the difference in the flower heads, several reverse image searches have confirmed that I may have misunderstood the arborist. This may be a lilac bush. With that said, the purple interior design theme works for both!
One of the coolest parts about being a homeowner is being able to make the house your own. Two years into buying my own condo, guests would come over and say, “This looks like you.” And only the people who know you well know what “you” looks like. But it can get a little tricky when it comes to living in a multi-unit building.
In that case, the communal area, such as the garden, has to be a happy medium for everyone. I learned that the hard way as a prior condo board president, who was working with two other board members to get our garden in order.
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At the time, I was nowhere near having a green thumb and couldn’t have told you the difference between a hosta and a chrysanthemum. It was all just “garden stuff” to me. But the condo board treasurer was a gardener who could dissect plants as well as my grandfather. I let her take the lead on pricing, structure, grass length, and which plants to remove and add. She even had her husband stop by and dig up a few weeds, planting some of her own hostas in the lawn.
Once we agreed on a professional gardening company to handle the rest (it had been abandoned once our property manager’s contract ended, including a big slope where dirt should’ve been and weeds were overpowering the grass), we were all set to sign off. Although we gave up on the nuisance of an apple tree that was leading to pests in our yard, we agreed on which bushes to remove.
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But there was another problem. While some of those bushes we wanted to remove were about 85% leaning on our property, the roots of these trees were on our neighbor’s side. That meant our arborist couldn’t legally remove them. There was also one moment when he stopped and looked at me curiously, after I complained about a nuisance tree that looked like it was shrugging at us.
What I thought was a weed bush turned out to be a lavender tree. It just needed a little tender loving care to get back to looking how it should look. After a bit of pruning and trimming, it started to look better. Even though it was in an area toward the back of our building that was way too shady for the six or so hours that a lavender tree needs, he did what he could to get it back to looking how healthy lavender trees should look. From that point forward, when I look in the lawn, I look at that tree a little differently — and lavender in general.
So, when I heard about a recent home trend — lavender summer trend — it made me wonder how I could incorporate it into my own home. While I had no interest in the lemon girl trend, the butter yellow trend or garden trends, my home already has a natural aesthetic. Tomatocore was OK, but I prefer maroon over brighter red trends like this one or the Unexpected Red Theory. (As much as I like vanilla trends, it looks like a headache to keep clean as a dog owner. I’m already fighting the good fight with Sweeper Sundays of my beige couch.)
However, lavender seemed doable. If you’re interested in adding a touch of lavender (and not just the trees outside), here are 13 suggested items to consider in your own home (including your woman cave) or office.
1. Lavender Wreath
2. Lavender (Artificial) Flowers
3. Lavender (Real) Flowers
4. Lavender Fragrances
5. Lavender Eye Mask
6. Lavender Tea
7. Lavender Electronics
8. Lavender Laundry
9. Lavender Sheets
10. Lavender Pillows
11. Lavender Chairs
12. Lavender Bath and Shower
13. Lavender Pet Care
Did you enjoy this post? You’re also welcome to check out my Substack columns “Black Girl In a Doggone World,” “BlackTechLogy,” “Homegrown Tales,” “I Do See Color,” “One Black Woman’s Vote” and “Window Shopping” too. Subscribe to this newsletter for the monthly post on the third Thursday. Thanks for reading!