When to plant lemon balm?
- Botanical name
- Melissa officinalis
- Family
- Lamiaceae
Lemon balm is planted from March to May. It is harvested from April to October. It is cut back from July to August.
Lemon balm is a perennial plant. The edible parts are the leaves and flowers.
Lemon balm that has flowered sows itself and young plants come up around it. To keep that from happening, it is cut low above the ground straight after flowering, before the seed ripens.
A shoot cut from the plant makes roots in a glass of water and can then go into the ground.
Lemon balm through the year
- planting
- harvest
- cutting back
In short
Growing conditions
Is lemon balm toxic to cats and dogs?
No. Lemon balm is not toxic to cats and dogs.
Pests and diseases
Listed here is every problem for which the sources name this plant as a host. The problems are not listed in order of how common they are.
- Signs
- Over the upper side of the leaves there is a coarse pale speckling, and on the underside small animals that jump away quickly. By the end of summer the leaf can be heavily mottled, while the growth of the plant is hardly affected. The affected herbs are perfectly safe to eat.
- Prevention
- It overwinters as an egg on the plant itself and is active from May into autumn, so cleared old wood and foliage at the end of the season helps. Encourage birds, ladybirds, parasitic wasps and ground beetles.
- What to do
- No spray is needed: the pest does not affect the growth or the vigour of the plant, so the right answer is to put up with it. If the look bothers you, cut back the most mottled shoots, because the new growth comes clean.
- Signs
- A white, floury coating spreads over the leaves, first on the lower and older ones. The leaf under it yellows and dries up. The fruit stays small, because the plant loses leaf surface.
- Prevention
- Plant resistant varieties, leave an airy spacing and sun, and clear the debris at the end of the season. Unlike most fungi it is not helped by wet foliage, since it spreads in heat and high air humidity, in a dry summer too.
- What to do
- Oil products meant for powdery mildew on the squash family work on contact. They do not cure a leaf that is already affected, but they stop the spread to healthy ones. On herbs cut the affected shoots back instead, since the new growth comes clean. On ornamental perennials what is left is spacing and moisture.
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Related plants
The plants below are in the same botanical family (Lamiaceae).
Sources about the plant: ASPCA Toxic and Non-Toxic Plants, BUND Region Hannover, GBIF Backbone Taxonomy, NC State Extension Plant Toolbox, Royal Horticultural Society, University of Georgia Extension, University of New Hampshire Extension, University of Wisconsin-Madison Division of Extension, Wikidata. Checked between 14 and 20 August 2026. The problem descriptions also draw on: Clemson Cooperative Extension, KGZS, UF/IFAS Extension, University of Maryland Extension, Utah State University Extension.