I love all natural lemony scents and flavours. I love lemons, and have many lemon trees of the cultivated and bush varieties, never wanting to be without lemon juice or peel in the kitchen.
But I also have two native trees with lemon-scented leaves.
This little beauty is the Lemon Myrtle (Backhousia citriodora), and I pick and dry its leaves to add whole to my teas.
On the tree, you have to crush a leaf to get the perfume. The beautiful starry clusters of flowers are a bonus I hadn’t expected from this Queensland rainforest tree.
The other is a Lemon Scented Ti-Tree or Tea Tree (Leptospermum petersonii). It too can be used to make tea, although I haven’t. It’s grown into a lovely spreading shape, and the slightest brush against the leaves does release a strong lemon scent.
From a distance — like the house — the simple white flowers seem to dust the tree with light snow.
This one has a history: it seeded itself into a pot of aloe vera I had sat beneath the only tree in the tiny back yard of an inner-Sydney semi I was renting.
I love chance seedings — and freebies!
I’d say yes, Hilton, since this tree began life as a self-sown one in a pot growing something else. The pot had been under a lemon tea tree in a terrace house courtyard when I lived in Sydney. It moved with me in its own pot back here and had to wait a while to be planted. I reckon the chooks rather than the pot might be a problem! Good luck.
Hi Sharyn,
Can you grow a lemon scented tea tree in a pot, as i would like to put inside my budgerigar aviary.
Regards.
Hilton.
Hi Denis,
I am sorry you can’t grow the myrtle there– and I know you’re a a gardener. It must be the cold– do you get frost? – as it’s coping with 55-60 inches p.a. rainfall here, but at 3000 feet, no frost.
Hi Sharyn
Lovely Lemon Myrtle. I am jealous, as its too cold and wet here for them.
But I have a number of the Lemon-scented Tea Trees growing. They are in full flower today, and the shrub is swarming with insects.
And I only grew it for its scent. The flowers and insects are a bonus I had not anticipated.
Cheers
Denis