News

Hajar Eido Khadida is a 23-year-old student living in Khanki IDP camp in the Kurdistan Region of Iraq. We chatted to her about her garden and life in general during the Covid-19 pandemic. 🌿 How much time do you spend in your garden and why is it important to you?I spend 30 minutes every day … Continued

It was an absolute pleasure speaking to Andrew O’Brien on his Gardens, Weeds & Words podcast. Andrew is an online garden coach, podcaster, blogger. He spoke about Lemon Tree Trust’s garden at the 2018 RHS Chelsea Flower Show in his first ever podcast, and so it was great to join him for this episode, three … Continued

In our special book offer, launched in collaboration with Bloom magazine, when you make a donation to the Lemon Tree Trust, we will send you a signed hardback copy of ‘War Gardens: A Journey Through Conflict in Search of Calm’ by Lalage Snow. Blurb: “In this millennium, we have become war weary. From Afghanistan to … Continued

The Azadi Community Garden in Domiz 1 camp in the Kurdistan Region of Iraq, is run by a small team of gardeners headed up Aveen, our Operations Manager. We asked team members Ismail and Shalal (pictured below) some questions about their work in the garden and their favourite plants. Ismail “I’m Ismail, a Syrian refugee. … Continued

Huge gratitude and thanks go to Erin Benzakein, Becky Crowley and all the team at Floret Flowers. As well as a generous donation of Floret seeds to our emergency ‘Gardener to Gardener’ Seed Appeal, Erin has published a lovely interview feature with our founder Stephanie Hunt on the Floret website. In the feature, Stephanie chats … Continued

Our heartfelt thanks go to Bridget and Henrietta at The Land Gardeners for donating profits from the first issue of their new pop-up magazine to Lemon Tree Trust. In this beautiful digital magazine, The Land Gardeners share what to plant and how to grow in lockdown. Plus, read about Erin Benzakein’s favourite pink flowers, Paul Bangay’s most-loved garden book, Kay … Continued

This International Tea Day, our operations manager, Aveen, shares her delicious and refreshing recipe for herbal tea. It blends rose, lemon balm, rosemary, lavender, santolina and mint. Before Covid-19, Aveen and our group of gardeners enjoyed taking tea together in the Azadi Community Garden in Domiz. After a busy session tending to the plants, it … Continued

Mr Fothergill’s and the Lemon Tree Trust are working together to provide 100,000 packets of quality seed to people living in refugee and IDP (internally displaced people) camps in the Kurdistan Region of Iraq. Mr Fothergill’s is supporting our Emergency ‘Gardener to Gardener’ Seed Appeal with a week-long promotion to its UK customers. For every … Continued

The global spread of Coronavirus Covid-19 means it is not possible to run our garden competitions in the Kurdistan Region of Iraq (KRI) this spring. However, we will continue to encourage people to sow seeds and enjoy gardening by celebrating refugee and IDP camp home gardens with a ‘virtual’ home garden exhibition this year. Residents … Continued

We are all living in strange and worrying times. The Coronavirus Covid-19 does not discriminate and globally we are all feeling its effects. Refugee and IDP camps are very densely populated with no parks or public green space. One of our goals is our focus on home gardens and this is now more important than … Continued