I have a nice warm corner where I have grown rosemary for years. The first plant eventually got sprawling and messy, so I took it all out and planted a new one.. maybe 8- ten years ago. Now this one is looking very bronze from the severe cold this winter, and has a lot of short woody branches from being trimmed, not much new growth looking very promising. Should I remove that and just get a new one? I expect, yes, but wondered what you all might think. Would it put out a lot of new growth if I cut it way back to woody stems?

I'm not sure it would put on new growth and fill in with such drastic pruning.
I also wonder when the best time of year would be to prune it back.
Are you up to digging this one up and putting in a new one? Sounds like a lot of work...
For using, I do like the fresh tender stems of rosemary far better and think I would opt for the new one.

yeah, a bit of work but i think that's what I'll do. Then i can improve the soil too.

Wow--I'm impressed that anyone can keep rosemary for 10 years! Overwintering ours indoors is hit or miss at best, and no chance it can stay outdoors.

Linda, I'm nominally zone 7 a or b, and this sunny corner where the rosemary lives could be 8 or better.

Rosemary was one of the 1st things I planted when I bought my house 20 years ago. It couldn't have been any bigger than a gallon size pot. I was just experimenting to find out where the sun would be. Well that little rosemary is about 6'x8'. It suffered some damage a year or 2 ago when someone who allegedly knew what she was doing had a different opinion of what 'a little trim' means. (I had surgery otherwise I wouldn't have had her do any work.) By the time I saw what she was doing, she's cut a large v-shaped chunk out of it. But rosemary is very hardy down here and so far it's doing ok.
First picture was taken in April 2016



The 2nd picture was taken in October 2016. I cried.



I do think our recent freezing temps (hey! it's cold for us) might have hurt it a bit but I can't imagine removing it.

Sally, why would you want to remove yours? Anyway, I wouldn't cut it back now. I'd wait until spring, whenever that might be. You can amend the soil anytime you like. And that's the extent of my gardening knowledge.

Two month have passed ~ wonder what you've done ```

There a wharf at San Francisco ~ with ~ Rosemary ~ as hedges ```

You can do both ~ trim or shape you plants and ~ get new ones ~ if you've room ```


Richard

I haven't done anything to mine other than apologize to it whenever I walk by.

i haven't taken action yet. it was starting to bloom a little on one branch, so felt bad about taking it out while in bloom. And weather has been marginal still, and I found other things to work on. Then we got hit by another storm- the most snow of the whole winter here.
But there really is no good looking growth on the whole thing, this winter was a death knell, I can't really find any parts that look good enough to use.

Sometimes you have to be ruthless.

If it is brittle-dead and you dig it up, woody pieces might smell nice on a fire. Don't know enough to know if that suggestion was dangerous, but I can still smell the aromatic smoke...in my mind, of course.

My rosemary, in Seattle, never looks good pulling out of winter. It's flowering now and won't start putting out new, harvest ready growth until May at the earliest. In June I harvest about half of the new shoots and prune out any ultra long old branches. The farther the branch is from the root crown the less vigorous it usually is. My planting is getting on 20 years old now.

good to know, thank you both!

Taking out the center is a common way to prune back large bushes. They die in the center as they get big, since no light shines in there.

I would cut it a lot of it right back to the ground in the spring and then you should get some new usable growth from the roots. If you are gong to replace it anyway, I would cut it all right back to the ground and wait to see if you get all new, tender growth.

You can also root green stems easily. Take many cuttings and root them in damp soil/sand before digging it out. You will have several new babies to replace it with.

Well,
hope that helps the next person. I dug it out, it looked horrible. It had one emergence point from the ground, not a suckering growth that looked likely to make new stems.
I opted to support my local nursery and buy a new young plant.

Good for you Sally on supporting the local nursery. I sometimes wonder how profitable their business is when I purchase a perennial plant or take cuttings or save seeds.

And Sheryl, I agree with Sally. You shared good information that I'm certain will help others that read this. Thanks and Welcome!

I was getting very close to giving mine an extreme haircut but thought I'd wait until / if the weather cools down. It was 110F today. But the weird thing is that as I was outside watering my container plants, I looked over and noticed that the rosemary had totally greened up. (or maybe it was because I was wearing sunglasses.)

sallyg said:Linda, I'm nominally zone 7 a or b, and this sunny corner where the rosemary lives could be 8 or better.

I agree with you!

As much as I hate to purposely murder a healthy plant, when/if Fall comes around the rosemary might have to go. I know I could (and am) cutting off small dead branches, this 20 year old plant is taking up a lot of real estate, in the sunniest part of my yard no less. Take a look. The roots are humongous but there's plenty of green 'leaves'.










As a whole:



The crazy thing is that I don't use it much for tea or seasoning. On the other hand it's been my friend for 20 years. And on another hand it does provide some shelter for the birds.

Sigh. May continue to procrastinate.

I had 3 huge Rosemary plants for more than 10 years. I never trimmed them and they go really overgrown. I decided to drastically trim them back, so I did it. They all died. This was in AZ. I kept them watered and have no idea why the heavy trim killed them.