Rosemary

[Presto]

Hi Im a newbie, I am interested in planting Rosemary, I love cooking with it, Where do I start? Should I buy a plant or buy seeds I dunno where to beging?

 

[1acrefarm]

I am no expert with rosemary but its very easy. I bought mine in a six inch peat pot at home depot. I planted it in full sunlight. The area I planted it in did not have great soil so I dug a hole bigger than the plant needed and used the old soil for fill elsewhere. I then put bagged topsoil and compost in hole. I mixed the topsoil and compost up with a pick and then made a hole in that big enough to put rosemary pot in. I peeled bottom of peatpot of and left the rest intact and put it in the hole and lightly packed dirt around it and watered well. It has gotten 10 times its size in just a year. This is without supplemental watering and we are in a drought. I do have mulch in the garden so it retains moisture well. As with any tree or bush its probably best mulch does not touch it.

A word of caution plant it where it has plenty of room. I had one rosemary bush get too big for the area it was in. I killed it when I moved it.

 

[Presto]

Thank you so much, I didnt know they can grow like that, I defintley have a spot then, & I'm going to go check out Lowes see what they have, have to make sure its a plant I can cook with.
The ground is still hard here, I feel like spring has not made it to us yet here on long island so I have to wait, but I am going to start planting other herbs I can put in my garden window.

I just got off topic, sorry, I got ants in my pants, lol...I want to plant!!!

 

[KeyLimePie]

The folks at your county extension office should know best what to plant & how in your particular area. In my county there is a direct phone line manned by Master Gardeners who are available daily to answer all my plant questions.

Rosemary grows like an evergreen bush, with fragrant short green needles growing from the branches. At Christmastime I see it sold in pots trimmed into a cone like a Christmas tree. I also bought mine already started in the little pots. I had it growing in a big pot for a while, then put it into the ground when it got bigger. I didn't do anything particularly different than any other transplanting.

You can find out what other herbs grow well in your area, which will be perennials and which are annuals. I love having the herbs I use the most growing fresh & handy right outside my door. They are tasty to eat, beautiful to see, and have a lovely fragrance. You can grow them from seed, but I prefer getting them already started. If you wanted to plant a long row of something I'd use seeds, if you only need a couple of each then get the sprouts.

All the best to you & your garden.

 

[OCMG]

You actually grow Rosemary by cuttings. Make a fresh cut and either dipit in rootone and plant it in a small pot or you can take a cutting and place in a glass of water to grow roots.

Rosemary can be propogated from cuttings with greater success than sowing seed. Propagating Rosemary by cutting requires about an 8cm cutting be taken from new growth in late spring (cut just below a leaf joint). Place the cutting in a small pot filled with potting compost. Stand the pot in water to enable the compost to draw water up. Once the compost is moist place the pot under glass of some kind (I.e. a windowsill propagator or clear plastic bottle) to retain heat. The cutting should develop roots and be ready for transplanting about 2 months after the cutting.

Dose that help?

 

[digitS']

Presto, what you get from seeds are plants from the "gene pool" and they may or may not be what you are hoping for. They are certainly likely to be varied, one from another.

A few years ago, I purchased some named rosemary plants from Richters. They are a real nice culinary variety but their hardiness zone requirement (8-10) meant that they couldn't stay outdoors in the Winter. So they were planted in pots and when cold weather came, moved to the basement near a West window. Life was difficult and half the plants died.

I have a small greenhouse and altho' it isn't heated during the cold weeks of Winter, I thought that the rosemary plants might be happier in there. That Winter, they were set on the floor and covered with a heavy quilt whenever the temperatures dropped outdoors below 15F. They actually spent many, many nights and a few days under the quilt but all the plants survived in the greenhouse until Spring.

We attempted to propagate them in April of last year. The books all said that cuttings should be taken during late Summer or the Fall but I'm fairly sure that this is if one has a heated greenhouse for them to grow thru the Winter. Since that wasn't going to be the case - as soon as they looked like they really wanted to grow in the Spring, cutting were taken.

Obviously, it is hard on the plants to spend so many months under cover from the freezing cold (temperatures drop below zero every Winter). I found the quilt frozen to the north wall at one time. Even if it rises above freezing in the greenhouse nearly every day, there isn't sufficient light up here near the 49th parallel for them to carry on any photosynthesis.

Taking cutting from the plants in the Spring worked and the plants have given us plenty of rosemary to use for cooking. They will put out a lot of new growth soon but if they need to be renewed, there should be plenty of cuttings that that can come off them by next year:

 

[Presto]

:dance Thank you everyone!

 

[aquarose]

Hey Presto. I live on Long Island too. We used to live in Queens and I had a rosemary plant (variety "Arp") and it was supposed to be the hardiest variety. It lived happily for many years, and I would cut lots of branches off to use for cooking, and if I didn't cut anything off, the next year it would bloom. I cut starts when we moved to Nassau county, and they all died over the winter. I have tried at least half a dozen times since then, and it always dies of cold. Finally, the one I planted last year seems to have survived. Next year, I might try a wall-o-water, or even some gallon jugs of water right up against it to see if that will help protect it from the cold. Otherwise, its a great plant, not fussy. In Queens, it was always the most beautiful plant in my garden (year round). You won't have a chance to overwinter it unless you get "Arp", and there's one other really hardy variety but I don't remember what it is right now. Good Luck! PS: I got "Arp" last year at Hicks Nursery in Westbury.

 

[DrakeMaiden]

Just wanted to say that I've started rosemary from seed and the plants were as good as any I've bought. Maybe I got lucky?

Like others have mentioned, rosemary will grow faster than you'll be able to harvest it, so you'll get a nice big shrub.

I heard that if you plant it in the front of the house, it means the woman "wears the pants" in the family.

 

[Presto]

Hey aquarose, Thanks for the tips. I bought a Rosemary plant from Lowes the other day, it was an impulse buy lol....
I was born in Queens too, Woodhaven, on Atlantic Ave..


DrakeMaiden I'm planting the rosemary in the front lol...thanks, I plan on telling my husband that!

Cheers.
Lori