Lemon Ideas, Tips & Guides

If there’s one DIY recipe that’s simple, fun, and makes a house feel (and smell) like a home, it’s a simmer pot. All you have to do is cut some fruit into slices, add it to a pot with some spices, cover the ingredients with water, and simmer it on the stove for a few hours, and voila—you have a warm, inviting home. It’s such a lovely trick that you might consider bringing part of the routine into the rest of your household duties. Like, perhaps, cleaning your pillows?

How to Grow Fruit Trees in a Greenhouse

James R. Salomon

Spider Mums, scientifically known as Chrysanthemum Morifolium, is a delightful addition to gardens, offering a diverse range of captivating colors and patterns. These unique varieties showcase intricate designs and colors, making them stand out in any outdoor setting. Let’s explore some of the most Beautiful Spider Mum Varieties and Colors.

Keeping citrus trees indoors is a dream for many gardeners who live in cold climates like the Northeast, especially through long, dark, and snowy winters. Many gardeners face the agonizing decision either to allow a precious and often expensive citrus tree that they found at a garden center in spring to freeze or to bring it inside for winter. This article will go over everything you need to know to grow citrus outdoors during summer and indoors during winter, and it offers tips on pest management, pollination, fertilization, and repotting.

We are huge fans of great laundry hacks at The Spruce, and we especially love reusing household items as easy, effective additions to your machine. This is especially true if they can replace harsh chemicals, or lessen the amount of product needed to get a load of laundry smelling great and feeling fresh.

In the world of gardening, battling pests is an ongoing challenge. While traditional pest control methods certainly have their merits, some gardeners have ventured into the realm of unconventional remedies and lesser-known tricks to protect their precious plants. Here’s a glimpse into the world of Bizarre Pest Control Remedies that might just save your garden.

If you are a fan of colors, then don’t miss out on these Best Tricolor Aglaonemas! They will look stunning in your rooms in classy pots!

The focus on food waste tends to be on the fresh items we don’t manage to eat before they go past their sell-by date, but in our house there are plenty of pantry items that are hidden from view and remain unused, and my Inner Womble has been inventing ways to make use of them. Now that I’m at home for lunch, making fresh soup and bread is a good way of dealing with both of them – a blended soup can hide a multitude of less-than-perfect food items, and an inventive bread recipe can make use of some as well.

We half-finished the back garden last year, in that we installed and planted half of the raised beds. In truth, we did a lot more than half, as we had all of the paving done and installed the two sheds. But the wet weather over the winter stalled progress, and it has remained unfinished. It has been frustrating, but has become even more so since the sowing season arrived and I faced the fact that the plants I wanted to grow this year had no home to go to. And so it is with great excitement that I can say that weather, time and energy coincided over the weekend, and we have broken new ground!

Now that the arbor is up, I need to think about surrounding it with plants. I have climbing achocha and mashua which might (hopefully) provide some shade. Once you’ve eliminated the possibility of heat stroke, you’re left with that other perennial summer problem – pests. How do you stop bugs great and small from bugging you, or committing suicide in the jug of Pimms?

Last week’s outdoor ‘cooking’ experiment didn’t involve lighting a fire – I relied on solar power!

A summer pitcher of Pimms is a recipe for delight.

Throughout history, herbs and spices have been extremely popular, used as medicines and aphrodisiacs as well as making their way into dinner. A plant that the Romans (and ancient Greeks and Egyptians) would have been familiar with was Silphium. They thought it was the finest of all seasonings, as well as a top notch medicinal plant. The Romans got a taste for meat from animals fed on Silphium, and it seems that the herb may well then have been grazed into extinction. It never seemed to make it into cultivation. Another possible explanation of Silphium’s disappearance is that a change in the Mediterranean climate meant it could no longer thrive, and died out naturally. According to Pliny, the last known Silphium plant was given to Emperor Nero as a gift.

Myrtle (Myrtus communis) is a plant that has been on my ‘to grow’ list for years now, although it has yet to make an appearance in the garden. In the UK it is often grown as an ornamental plant, an evergreen shrub up to 3m in height and width. Given a spot in full sun and well-drained soil, it produces pink buds that open into white flowers with multiple gold-tipped stamens, followed by blue-black berries. It is hardy down to -10°C, and in mild areas can be grown as a hedge as it tolerates regular clipping. The species has the most frost tolerance; some of the named varieties are less hardy, but there are also smaller varieties that will tolerate being in a container long term, and so can be moved into more sheltered accommodations for the winter.

A few weeks ago I was talking about my desire to have more mint in the garden, a plan which is still a work in progress. It’s hard keeping mints in small pots happy in a hot, sunny garden. Ultimately I’d like to plant them into bottomless pots, sunk into the soil along the fence, but work on that area of the garden has stalled whilst we take care of other things.

I’m not well adapted to hot weather. I’ve been soldiering on, trying to get on with things as the temperature soars, but on Friday I gave up and decided to aestivate (the summer version of hibernation) on the sofa. Mostly I watched endless episodes of Bones, but I also flipped through a new recipe book I’d been given to review, Fress, bold flavour from a Jewish kitchen. According to the front cover, Fress means “to eat copiously and without restraint.”

Sage is a hardy perennial grown for centuries for use medicinally and as a culinary herb. Over the course of those centuries, organic gardens have found that companion plants for sage encourage the vigor of the herb as well as the sage companion plants. What grows well with sage? There are a number of companion plants for sage. Continue reading to learn about companion planting with sage.

Philodendrons are versatile and stunning plants that can elevate both the interior and exterior of your home. Whether you’re looking to create an indoor oasis or a captivating outdoor landscape, these different Ways to Use Philodendron in Home and Garden will help you make the most of the beauty and charm that philodendrons bring to your spaces.

Keeping your home clean and healthy doesn’t have to mean using harsh chemicals. These DIY Herb Cleaner Recipes are safe and offer effective cleaning and disinfecting properties while also filling your home with fresh, pleasant scent.

Herbs for anxiety are a fantastic way to soothe your mind and find calmness without resorting to pharmaceutical options. Let’s explore some of the Best Medicinal Herbs that can help alleviate anxiety and their uses.

If you want a beautiful plant that brings a tropical vibe indoors with its large serrated leaves, then this guide on Philodendron Florida Ghost Care will surely help you!

If you’re looking to eliminate the strong odor of weed, these simple Ways to Get Rid of Weed Smell can help you clear the air. Discover effective ways to remove the distinct smell and maintain a more discreet environment.

There are many great Houseplants That Can be Used as Christmas Tree Alternatives, and apart from that, they look good as well.

In the wide spectrum of horticulture, marigolds have long been considered the darlings, their gilded hues a testament to their name! Here are some Exotic Marigold Varieties that you mustn’t miss!

Ask a gardener of any skill level what the hardest part of having a garden is and they will all tell you the same thing – getting rid of weeds.

As someone both blessed and cursed with a keen sense of smell, I sometimes wonder what it would be like to lose it. To never again inhale, for example, the sweetness of a rose. To be forced to go without the spicy, spring perfume of witch-hazel, or the fresh-earth scent of newly dug potatoes, or the sharp, vegetal tang of tomato plants softly baking in a hot glasshouse in high summer.

Lemon Tree Flower Drop might seem tragic, but that doesn’t put an end to your harvest. Wondering how? Check out our detailed article on How to Get More Fruits on Your Lemon Tree for the answer!

Try these delicious flavoursome summer cocktail recipes to recreate Chelsea at home. We’ve even got the kids covered with a homemade elderflower cordial recipe just perfect for this time of year.

At The Pig near Bath gardeners Ollie Hutson and Fran Chilet-Olmos aim to have a steady supply of leafy herbs all summer. Crops such as tarragon are picked in fat bunches, then hung upside down in one of the polytunnels to dry, before the crisp leaves are stored in preserving jars so they can be used in winter. Annual herbs to grow such as basil, coriander, caraway and chervil are sown two or three times during the growing season, so there is a constant supply of fresh leaves.

Daffodils are classified into 13 divisions and currently one of the most popular is Division 8 Tazetta Narcissi. These are a group of low growing daffodils that are at home in rockeries or containers.

A good idea that failed in my garden this summer involved Petunias. Rather than plant the brash coloured Petunias I thought I would go for some scent and colour coordinated schemes. So I opted for these Lemon F1 plants I bought as seedlings. The idea was to grow Lemon Verbena and Geranium Lemon crispum alongside the petunias for the leaf scent. The weather was not kind to the petunias and they suffered badly in the ground. Those in pots fared better but still did not excel and had no scented plants with them. I like the idea and will try again next year probably with a different combination.

Copper from an old penny, vinegar, lemon juice and aspirin have some preservative effect as they are all acidic.

A favorite annual is the Marigold or Tagetes. Bold colours in Yellows, Oranges, Lemons Reds and Creams are a feature of these plants that flower from July to the first frost. Despite the names they all originate from Mexico.

A virus has struck my favourite raspberries and the leaves have gone mottled. The light lemon green could have been a sign of magnesium deficiency but that turns out to be wishful thinking on my part. One variety partially effected last year is now in full denial and full of virus (its not just raspberry flu either.) As can be seen below full symptoms of my raspberry virus are obvious.