One of my all time favorite herbs is Lemon Verbena (Aloysia triphylla). It remains my favorite after all these years because of its intoxicating scent. Once you smell lemon verbena you will never forget it. To describe its scent is rather hard. For sure it is lemony but not so sweetly lemony. Its smell is rather deep and complex.
I have been growing it for years in containers and when I gardened in Southern California it was quite easy to care for as it overwinters just fine outdoors there. Up here in the Pacific Northwest where I now reside it is another story. To leave my container grown lemon verbena outdoors during the winter here would spell certain death.
To combat this I bring my lemon verbena in when the fall temperatures begin to drop lower and lower. The first year I did this I thought my little plant was a goner as it looked completely dead. Lemon verbena does drop its leaves during the winter so that was normal behavior for it but I had convinced myself that I had killed it indoors. Sadly, I placed it in our garage for the remainder of the winter.
Come spring time I placed what I feared to be a dead plant outside and let it receive all the rain water it wanted. Within a few weeks it began to show signs of life. Amazingly this lemon verbena survived its long winter break in the garage. I was completely shocked but happy as can be that I did not lose my beloved lemon verbena. I would not recommend overwintering lemon verbena in a garage even though mine did survive. Instead I would recommend placing it in a brightly lit room and water only sparingly. When all danger of frost is over gradually begin placing the potted lemon verbena back outside.
Lemon Verbena in the Home
Lemon verbena leaves are very easy to dry as they tend to do so rather quickly. To dry, the braches can be hung upside down or the leaves can be striped off the plant and placed on a screen. My method for drying them is the same method I use for drying chamomile.
The dried lemon verbena leaves can then be made into tea. Below are two recipes to try that I enjoy.
Straight Up Lemon Verbena Tea
3 cups water, ½ cup dried lemon verbena leaves; pour boiling water over leaves. Steep 10-20 minutes according to taste. Serves 3
Lavender Lemon Verbena Tea
This is a great relaxing tea to have in the evening.
Mix together 1 cup dried lemon verbena leaves with 3 tablespoons dried lavender buds.
Pour 1 cup boiling water over 1 teaspoon of tea mixture and allow to steep 10-20 minutes according to taste. Makes one serving
Fresh lemon verbena leaves can also be used to make tea. To use fresh leaves you will want to double the amount of leaves used. Fresh lemon verbena leaves are my favorite for making herbal sun teas. You can find the instructions for that here.
In the future I will include more recipes for using lemon verbena. One thing to keep in mind when growing this wonderful herb is to make sure you frequently pinch back the tips. This keeps the lemon verbena nice and bushy as they do have a tendency to get scraggly if you don’t. Continuous harvesting of the leaves for tea brewing makes this not a problem! 
{ 6 comments… read them below or add one }
I love the smell of lemon verbena. Great post today. Those teas sound very good.
Thank you PGL.
It does smell heavenly. The teas are good and easy too! -Cindy
The smell of lemon verbena reminds me of my MIL’s farmhouse kitchen where she would dry bunches of it hanging upside-down above their wood stove. What a heavenly scent!
What a lovely smell to have memories from! I can just picture the bunches hanging to dry over the stove. It must have made the house smell wonderful. -Cindy
I actually put ALL my potted plants into my windowless garden shed (we’re going to put old windows into it at some point … but that’s a different post!) and watered them maybe twice all winter long. The first year I did this I thought I killed everything, but they all came back with a flourish. I’m probably making all real gardeners groan by admitting this, but it seems to work for me.
And great post! You’ve convinced me to grow some lemon verbena next year!
Thank you Lacey! You won’t regret growing it if you decide to next year, trust me.
It is my favorite, if I could only grow a few plants lemon verbena would for sure be one of them.
It never ceases to amaze me the will of a plant to survive! That is rather something about all your plants making it through the winter that way. I’d love to see pictures of you shed if you ever post about it. Drop me a note if you do please. I am wanting a potting shed here in the near future….. -Cindy
thanks for this post, i just bought a new lemon verbena plant at the NW Horticultural Society Plant sale and wanted to be sure to keep my plant alive for next spring/summer so I can enjoy the lovely scent and tea!
You are welcome Stef! I hope you found the post helpful. Enjoy your new Lemon Verbena.
-Cynthia
I brought my lemon verbena plant in last winter and was not sure it would survive. But, come spring, I put it outside and the leaves started to appear. The plant is awfully scaggly looking now and I wonder if I should prune it (severly?) before taking it in again for the winter. Any suggestions?
Thanks!
Hi Judy,
You could prune your lemon verbena a little bit now before you bring it in but I would wait until early Spring when you place it back outside for the more severe pruning. I always prune mine in the Spring when the new growth starts to bud out. Lemon verbena can get rather scraggly and frequent pinching back helps out alot during the growing season. Hope that was of some help to you! -Cynthia
Thanks for visiting my blog!
Thanks for the info, Cynthia.