News

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

Huge thanks to Mr Fothergill’s Seeds, with support from the RHS, who have donated over 11,000 packets of seeds to Lemon Tree Trust gardening projects. The mix of vegetable, herb and flower seeds are being distributed to people living in refugee, internally displaced persons and transit camps in the Kurdistan Region of Iraq so that … Continued

Inspired by a Channel 4 news story titled “The Last Gardener of Aleppo”, York based artist Linda Combi is staging a new exhibition of artwork and will donate a share of the proceeds to the Lemon Tree Trust. Linda was deeply moved by the TV news story that featured Abu Ward, the owner of a … Continued

Following the success and high levels of participation in our annual garden competition, a new Garden of the Month initiative has been set up in Domiz camp. This will help us celebrate camp gardens and shine a light on innovation and creativity throughout the year. Every month, the Lemon Tree Trust team visits a different … Continued