Lemon is one of the most magic scents in the garden. Much as I love roses — especially a cloud of rose perfume on a hot day — lemon scents are often stronger, as they come from the leaves, not the flowers. There are more leaves than blooms, so much more scent.
This doesn’t mean you can’t have flowers as well as lemon scents. My favourite winter bloomer — okay, one of my 50 favourites — is the evergreen pineapple- or lemon-scented marigold. It grows to a large bush, about 1.5m to 2m high, and the foliage is glorious every time you brush against it.
Pineapple marigold (though it’s more lemon than pineapple) responds well to hard pruning, and makes a good hedge if you are prepared to trim it every few weeks in summer. Otherwise just cut it back by about 60cm after the flowers die back.
Lemon grass is possibly the most lemony plant in the universe. It’s a perennial — in other words, it just keeps growing. Heavy frost kills it, so in cold areas grow it in a pot and keep it on a sunny patio or even take it indoors in winter.
I cut mine back regularly and tie the big bunch of leaves up in the hall where I’ll brush against them too, and cut off whatever I need to make lemon grass tea (far more fragrant when homegrown than any you can buy).
In frost-free areas, or where there is only light frost, lemon grass grows best in rich, well-drained, moist soil. It tolerates semi-shade in hot areas but prefers full sun. The small plant you buy at the nursery will eventually become enormous. One big clump will give many plants — just divide it and plant it out.
Lemon balm (Melissa officinalis) is a hard-to-kill lemon-scented small shrub, about 30cm high, for almost any area iun Australia. It’s great for hard-to-fill corners of the garden, but beware — it spreads. Don’t grow it near the bush! It’s also a bit disappointing in the taste department — despite the lemony scent it’s got a bit of a mothball flavour when you use it in cooking.
Lemon balm grows best in moist rich soil and partial shade from sunlight, especially in hot summers, but will tolerate drought, sun and exposure. It dies back after severe frost and looks really messy, all brown and spotty, after mild frosts but recovers with warm weather.
Lemon balm leaves can be picked as soon as they are large enough — small ones have less of an aftertaste than older ones. Young lemon balm leaves are good in salad sandwiches and a few can be added to give a faint lemon tang to salads. Old leaves are too tough.
Lemon verbena is a graceful, narrow leafed shrub. It loses its leaves in winter in cooler areas, but can keep them nearly all winter in subtropical regions. It grows up to 2m high and even wider but can be kept well trimmed.
It prefers full sun, though it tolerates semi-shade in hot areas. In very cold areas it needs to be protected from heavy frost for the first year but after that is sturdier and will survive anything from a blanket of snow to a four-year drought.
Lemon verbena tea is probably my favourite herbal tea. I use it as a base for all sorts of other teas, adding a few peppermint leaves or other flavourings, depending what I feel like. It’s one of the few herbal teas that men seem to like.
Lemon verbena leaves can be picked at any time but are most fragrant in the early morning and just before flowering. They can be dried and kept through winter in a sealed jar. Dry them as quickly as possible in a well-ventilated, dark place so they don’t lose their fragrance and seal them in a jar as soon as they are dry.
Lemon verbena tea can be drunk hot or cold. The leaves can also be added to equal parts of ordinary tea leaves for a lemon-scented tea and drunk either black or with milk and sugar, or frozen in iceblocks to add to cool drinks on hot days.
Lemon geranium is really a pelargonium, drought tolerant and hardy. Like all pelargoniums it grows easily from a cutting. I’ve tried cooking with it, but it too develops an aftertaste. It’s best grown where you will brush against it in the garden, releasing a gentle lemon whiff, though you can always do what the Victorians did — place sprigs in finger bowls to wash your hands after eating fish.
Lemon-scented gum tree is the giant of the lemon world, though as gum trees go it’s a nice small neat one, suitable for a backyard tree. It smells beautiful when you crush the leaves, and on hot days there is a haze of lemon about it — and the scent before and immediately after rain is magic.
Lemon and lime trees have their own scent too, from the ripening fruit and also to a lesser extent from the leaves, though none is as strongly perfumed as the plants above. Young lemon leaves are wonderfully fragrant, and tender enough to add to salads and sandwiches for a lemon tang, and of course kaffir lime leaves add their own individual fragrance to a whole range of dishes.
Kaffir limes are supposed to be tropical plants, but ours survives winters with -7°C frosts, although I grow it on a sunny bank, protected with other shrubs about it.
My favourite lemon is Eureka, drought hardy and cold hardy with big knobbly fruit, most in winter but some all year round. You never have to buy lemons when you have a Eureka lemon in the backyard.
You don’t even need a garden to have lemon scents. Try a kaffir lime in a pot, potted lemon grass or potted lemon “geranium”. Place them somewhere you will brush against them as you go indoors or walk up the stairs, and this winter will be filled with the balmy scent of lemon.
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