Requiem for a Lavender

I had been expecting a bumper lavender harvest this summer because of the age and size of my plants. I was not expecting to discover that most of my mature plants did not make it through the winter! I left them in until Memorial weekend to make sure they were either really dead, or just mostly dead ...

(From the Princess Bride)
Inigo Montoya: He's dead. He can't talk.
Miracle Max: Whoo-hoo-hoo, look who knows so much. It just so happens that your friend here is only MOSTLY dead. There's a big difference between mostly dead and all dead. Mostly dead is slightly alive. With all dead, well, with all dead there's usually only one thing you can do.
Inigo Montoya: What's that?
Miracle Max: Go through his clothes and look for loose change.

With a lavender, they have little loose change but they all needed to be ripped out and replaced!
Most online sources say that quality producers like Grosso should bloom for 7-10 years and some farms in California say up to 12 years. Most of my plants were less then 5 years old! The problem? They were too wet and cold for too long. Normally drainage is not a problem in Central Oregon! My sister in Olympia Washington had the same problem on a larger scale. Due to the long cold wet winter she lost many shrubs. I am curious to know what happened in your neck of the woods! Comment on this post and let me know how the weather this year has made an impact to your Central Oregon garden!