Herbalist Susan Evans teaches classes at the Denver Botanic Gardens and other locations around town. Here’s a sampling, and there’s more information at her website, .
Herbal Harvest
Malley Senior Center, Englewood, 303-762-2660
Aug. 2, 6:30-8:30 p.m.
Learn the easiest plants to grow and how to harvest, dry and store them for year-round use in syrups, pestos, spice mixes and healing teas.
Festival of Flowers
Golden Parks and Recreation, 303-384-8100
Aug. 9, 6-8 p.m.
Make and dine on lemon-ginger chicken served on flower confetti salad, calendula deviled eggs, herbed olives, and flower biscuits. Create herb and flower vinegar, crystallize flowers and learn how to make floral butters, sugars and syrups.
Edible Flower Feast
Denver Botanic Gardens, 720-865-3580
Aug. 11, 10 a.m.-12:30 p.m.
Make herb blossom canapes, chicken curry salad with flower confetti, and candied flowers, infused flower syrup, and a fragrant flower and herb tea.
Growing tips for lemon herbs:
Most lemon herbs don’t require fertilizer unless they are grown in pots. The fertilizer causes the plant to put more energy into growth, which can affect the intensity of the lemon flavor and aroma.
Lemon balm. Unlike mint, most varieties of lemon balm spread from seed, but if you don’t want to wait for the plants to seed themselves, take a lemon balm branch, still attached to the mother branch, weight it to the soil with a rock, and where the leaf hits the ground, the juncture will form a root.
Lemon thyme. This herb likes full sun, dry conditions and good drainage.
Lemongrass. This is not a fussy plant to grow. Use regular potting soil or plant it outside in the garden during the growing season. Bring the plant inside to a sunny window for the winter.
Lemon verbena. Can be moved indoors for the winter, when it will drop all of its leaves and go into a dormant stage. Water once a month. In the spring, new green growth will appear.
– Kathy Donohue,
Connecticut Unit of the Herb Society of America
