About this variety
Brush past this and you get a cloud of pure sherbet lemon. Lemon balm looks unassuming — bright green and crinkled, rather like a mint — but it is a powerhouse of flavour, and it makes a fresh herbal tea far better than anything from a dried teabag.
The Latin name tells you the other reason to grow it. Melissa is Greek for honeybee, and beekeepers once rubbed the leaves inside new hives to persuade a swarm to settle. Planted near fruit or vegetables it pulls pollinators in reliably.
Unlike the Mediterranean herbs it actually prefers moisture-retentive ground, which makes it useful on clay and in the cooler corners where thyme and lavender sulk. It is in the mint family but does not run underground; it does self-seed enthusiastically, so remove the flower spikes if you want to keep it in one place. Shear the whole plant back after flowering and it comes again fresh for autumn.
