Lemon balm you say? I may have once found some of that growing wild.
It was probably 40 years ago or so, and I was out thrashing around up on River Mountain in Russell County, VA. There is a mountain meadow about half way up the mountain, a clearing where no trees grow. As I was walking through it, I noticed a plant that looked familiar, but weird. It looked just like a catnip plant, but it was a lighter green. Maybe a yellow-ish green. I got curious and stopped, picking off a couple leaves and shredding them as I do when I'm trying to identify a plant by smell. I knew what catnip smelled like, and was checking to see if it was just some kind of mutant catnip plant.
Imagine my surprise when that "catnip" smelled just like a lemon! The leaves were dead-ringers for catnip, except for the lighter hue - same size, shape, and texture - but they smelled like lemons.
Was that lemon balm?
I use catnip for nerves and my stomach. But, since I found out that the reason cats roll in it is because it repels mites, I'm thinking that a tea of it might not be a bad idea for folks with mite allergies, which I happen to have... so I'm gonna use myself as a guinea pig to find out if it works. I got the cat here some cat treats that are flavored with catnip, and gave them to her to see if it works internally as well as with an external application, and it seems to have helped her a bit - she apparently has mite allergies too, some times to the point of appearing mangy. The catnip treats seem to have helped her...
... or else she's just rolling around in my catnip outside when I'm not watching her.
Or maybe both.
The thing about the catnip treats is that she seems to be addicted to them. She gets downright rowdy if I hold back on them, and after eating them, she's crazy as a shithouse rat for about 15 minutes, then she suddenly runs out of gas and passes out.
ETA: regarding the fig tree, I saw one growing on a college campus in Greensboro, NC, but I don't think I've seen them any farther north than that. You might check the USDA "growing zones" map to see if your zone is that warm, or warmer, and if it is, then it ought to do fine. I have a hunch that if magnolias will grow there, then figs ought to, too... but that's just a hunch.
.
It was probably 40 years ago or so, and I was out thrashing around up on River Mountain in Russell County, VA. There is a mountain meadow about half way up the mountain, a clearing where no trees grow. As I was walking through it, I noticed a plant that looked familiar, but weird. It looked just like a catnip plant, but it was a lighter green. Maybe a yellow-ish green. I got curious and stopped, picking off a couple leaves and shredding them as I do when I'm trying to identify a plant by smell. I knew what catnip smelled like, and was checking to see if it was just some kind of mutant catnip plant.
Imagine my surprise when that "catnip" smelled just like a lemon! The leaves were dead-ringers for catnip, except for the lighter hue - same size, shape, and texture - but they smelled like lemons.
Was that lemon balm?
I use catnip for nerves and my stomach. But, since I found out that the reason cats roll in it is because it repels mites, I'm thinking that a tea of it might not be a bad idea for folks with mite allergies, which I happen to have... so I'm gonna use myself as a guinea pig to find out if it works. I got the cat here some cat treats that are flavored with catnip, and gave them to her to see if it works internally as well as with an external application, and it seems to have helped her a bit - she apparently has mite allergies too, some times to the point of appearing mangy. The catnip treats seem to have helped her...
... or else she's just rolling around in my catnip outside when I'm not watching her.
Or maybe both.
The thing about the catnip treats is that she seems to be addicted to them. She gets downright rowdy if I hold back on them, and after eating them, she's crazy as a shithouse rat for about 15 minutes, then she suddenly runs out of gas and passes out.
ETA: regarding the fig tree, I saw one growing on a college campus in Greensboro, NC, but I don't think I've seen them any farther north than that. You might check the USDA "growing zones" map to see if your zone is that warm, or warmer, and if it is, then it ought to do fine. I have a hunch that if magnolias will grow there, then figs ought to, too... but that's just a hunch.
.