Conservatories
Bring the outside in
We Britons love our gardens – trouble is, we can’t always rely on the weather. Fortunately, there is a solution: simply put a roof on it. In fact, extending your home into...
Gardening
Chelsea Flower Show Guide
It’s going to be a very special show this year: the RHS Chelsea Flower Show, or ‘Chelsea’, as gardeners tend to call it, is celebrating its centenary, with RHS vice...
Globe Trotter
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HOME REMEDY: Lemon verbena
By Sof McVeigh
Back in April I wrote about my 'medicinal garden', which I had just planted, and mentioned that I had doubts about my new tiny lemon verbena plant. It is really a Mediterranean plant, loving sun and welldrained soil, so asking it to thrive in my garden, which is none of those – in fact it's rather shady, with claggy clay soil and after this summer, very wet – is quite an ask. However, amazingly, it has grown – maybe not quite thrived, but enough to harvest its leaves.
The fresh leaves have a light, lemony scent, not unlike the old-fashioned lemon sherbet sweets. They dry quickly in a few hours if left in the sun, which slightly tones down the smell. The leaves can be put in an airtight container and used for a relaxing tea throughout the year. It is soothing and calming for evening use and is also a good digestive tea, relaxing the gut. But avoid taking too much of it or using for long periods.
I tend to swap my evening teas, moving between chamomile and verbena, which are both calming, to mint tea – it's good for the digestion and can be invigorating, too.
Sof McVeigh: www.thehomemadecompany.com
More health:
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