Aloysia citrodora
Lemon verbena
Common names: Lemon shrub, Verbena
At a glance
- Light
- Full sun
- Spacing
- 50 cm, rows 60 cm
- Lifespan
- Perennial
- Harvest
- Jun–Oct
- Hardiness
- Cold damage below 0 °C
- Water need
- Medium
Photo: H. Zell · CC BY-SA 3.0 · Source
This description was machine-translated.
Description
Lemon verbena (Aloysia citrodora) is a Mediterranean semi‑evergreen shrub that emits the most intense and delicate lemon aroma of all culinary herbs. It is prized for enhancing teas, desserts, and syrups.
Care instructions
Place the plant in a pot in the warmest, sunniest spot and water regularly, avoiding waterlogging. Harvest leaves continuously from June to autumn. Before the first frost, bring the pot indoors and overwinter it in a cool, bright location at about 5 to 10 °C. Leaf drop is normal; the plant will regrow in spring.
The care notes were machine-translated from German.
Garden year
HarvestJun–Oct
Soil & site
Soil pH
Soil type
sandy, loamy, well-drained, humus-rich
Plant lemon verbena in loose, well-drained soil without waterlogging. A sandy-loamy mix with some humus is ideal; loosen heavy loam soils beforehand with sand. In a tub, use a free-draining substrate with a drainage layer; it does not tolerate wet, heavy conditions.
Feeding
Medium feeder
Months
Apr–Aug
In spring, as the shoots emerge, work compost in shallowly and add horn shavings as an organic nitrogen store. Over the growing phase from April to August you may occasionally top up with compost tea or diluted organic plant manure, in a tub somewhat more often, because nutrients wash out faster there. From September stop feeding, so that the shoots ripen before winter.
Overwintering
Lemon verbena is not hardy and must overwinter frost-free: bring the tub in before the first frost, cut the shoots back hard and keep the plant cool and frost-free (cellar, garage, shed). There it drops its leaves, rests for the winter and needs very little water. From mid-May, when there is no more risk of frost, it goes back outdoors; overwintering outdoors does not work reliably in the DACH lowlands.
Propagation
Methods
- Cuttings
- From seed
Propagating by cuttings is the most reliable method and clearly the method of choice for lemon verbena. From May to August, cut shoot tips (tip cuttings) about 10 to 15 cm long that have not yet turned woody, directly below a leaf node. Remove the lower leaves and keep only two to three leaves at the top, to reduce evaporation. Insert the cutting into low-nutrient, moist seed compost and cover the pot with a clear dome or a transparent plastic bag, to keep the humidity high. Place it bright but without direct sun at 18 to 25 °C. After about three weeks, new shoot tips show that roots have formed. Then pot on singly and pinch out the tip once it reaches 10 cm, to encourage branching.
Sowing from seed is much harder in the DACH region because of the cool climate: the seeds mostly do not ripen on the plant itself, and bought seeds are rare and germinate unreliably. If you want to try anyway, sow from February to March onto lightly pressed, uncovered seed compost (light germinator) at a constant 20 °C or so. The very small seeds are easier to distribute if you mix them beforehand with fine sand. Keep the compost evenly moist and expect a low success rate.
For your garden
Grow Lemon verbena yourself
Gartenkern tells you when frost is coming, when to sow and when to harvest, for your location.
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