My lavender plants are yellowing and blacking out from the center, are they dying?

Question:I am in San Jose, the plants are in morning sun mostly, planted a month ago. I observed they have yellow and black(dead?) stems in the center today. The outside is still green. Are they dying? I am watering them every morning. What could be wrong?

Answers:
I think you are probably over-watering and the plant is rotting away. It has been pretty hot lately (I am in CA, too), but lavender are fairly drought tolerant. Try cutting back watering to every other day, or even less. After a few weeks of less watering, you should see some re-growth. Lavender will wilt when they need water, so wait and see how long it takes for the flowers to wilt. Sometimes, if it is very hot, the tops will wilt in the middle of the day, but they will recover when the sun goes down and it cools off.