"Oh, but love grows where my Rosemary goes
And nobody knows like me"

I've been trying for the last six years to get a lot of rosemary going. I succeeded in keeping a small handful for three years but they also succumbed to winters.

I have a friend who lives about 50 miles almost directly east. He has entire hedges of it.

So I'm going to try again this year. I'm going to start with varieties in this article. Does anyone have anything to add? So far, establishment eludes me!

https://gardenerspath.com/plan...

I can not overwinter rosemary in my garden (zone 5)
I do bring in one pot to keep under lights in the winter , for when I just need fresh .

My suggestion would be to take some cuttings from your friends rosemary
they may just have a very hardy strain

I agree, I would try for cuttings of a rosemary that has survived.

This year I am sharing your woes. My two plants succumbed to a quick and dirty freeze here in January. Oddly they had survived the freezing week we saw in February 2021 but then we had ice and snow to insulate the plants.

Good luck with establishing your rosemary.

I keep my rosemary in large pots. I put them out in summer and bring them inside in the fall.

And just for the enjoyment of it, here's a picture of a rosemary hedge in Italy.

Well, snow insulates, ice will kill them. I think it was the rain before the freeze that took my rosemary out. If the soil had been dryer it might have pulled thru, and ditto on the other plants that normally grow here thru winter.

Key elements - full sun and very sharp drainage. They tolerate wet feet poorly. It's too cold here in MI to grow them in the ground, but I had several (4) old plants in pots, growing as bonsai specimens. Unfortunately, I lost them all to freezing when a family member inadvertently left the overhead garage door open on one of our -12*F nights. Anyway, the soil they thrived in looked like this:



In the ground, sandy loam is about the most water-retentive you should consider. Anything more water-retentive that that is going to be iffy.

Al

I wonder why my rosemary is thriving in my driveway gardens. My soil is mostly clay, but the driveway is gravel. They are not planted in the gravel. I've had these from 20 to 30 years.

Micro climates usually can provide areas they can tolerate, also the varieties that are out there now, I believe the ones they classify as 'culinary' have fleshier needles and are more susceptible to the cold.

Your driveway garden might have some of the underlayment (big gravel) from your driveway to help with drainage. I had a lovely lavender hedge along my driveway for nearly 15 years before the plants became too damaged and gnarly to look good.

'Arp' has done well for me, surviving nearly 10 winters in a little raised "pocket bed" I made by creating a low stone border behind a "sitting boulder" by our back patio. I didn't have drainage quite as sharp as shown above... I used old potting mix and sand, with a "mulch" of pea gravel.

The biggest challenge here isn't the cold, it's when it gets cold, then warms up enough for the plant to break dormancy in January, since we usually get our coldest weather in February.

Jill ~ For farmers and gardeners, weather is a problem. One that we cannot control. I have many plants including apple trees that get an early warmup some years, then snow and hard freezes following. I really don't know how those rosemaries survived all these years. They must have come from hardy stock.
Fortunately it has stayed rather cool, but we still could get a late freeze. Hardly anything in bloom right now except the hellebores and daffodils.

Oh, and some of the rosemaries. (Rosemarys?)

I'm glad I'm a gardener and not a farmer, worrying about the impact of the weather on my livelihood!

When is a rosemary not a rosemary?

When it is a salvia!!!

Look up rosemary in the database! The taxonomists have been at it again!

Lamiaceae Martinov? Salvia rosmarinus is also a mint, a salvia, and I wonder if this is because of dna testing? Who TH is Martinov, Martian by any chance?

It's Salvia rosmarinus.
In family Laminaceae, often called the mint family.

UrbanWild said:
I have a friend who lives about 50 miles almost directly east. He has entire hedges of it.

So I'm going to try again this year.
Does anyone have anything to add?

Actually, yes...

Please post pics from your friend's 'hedge'.

And...
Let's see if we can't figure out what your friend is doing different.

Is the plant growing on a berm?
Protected by a wall or sheltered by tree limbs?

And... I agree that getting some cuttings from a plant that we know to be hardy is a far better idea than buying plants recommended by a blog post.

I've seen rosemary thrive in clay... But it wouldn't be my first choice...

I'd probably plant it in a sandbox.

Like Jill, I'm reasonably certain mine is 'Arp' — I've never been 100% sure, it was in a 3" pot marked "Rosemary" when I planted it 11 years ago, and it never quits through snow and heat. It recently finished a heavy winter bloom and I just lopped off about 25% of it to keep it roughly 6' x 6'. I love that it provides late winter/early spring forage for bees when nothing else is awake.

I'll let the trimmings dry in the wood mulch and then stomp the dried needles off. Makes a fragrant walkway for awhile.

NMoasis said: Like Jill, I'm reasonably certain mine is 'Arp' — I've never been 100% sure, it was in a 3" pot marked "Rosemary" when I planted it 11 years ago, and it never quits through snow and heat. It recently finished a heavy winter bloom and I just lopped off about 25% of it to keep it roughly 6' x 6'. I love that it provides late winter/early spring forage for bees when nothing else is awake.

I'll let the trimmings dry in the wood mulch and then stomp the dried needles off. Makes a fragrant walkway for awhile.

😍😍😍

https://gardenerspath.com/plan...

I have never dug up my rosemary. They get snowed on every year. I do not recall what vaeieties they are but some are over 30 years old.

I water them maybe once or twice during the heat of summer. I let the hose run very low and slow. They all need trimming now! Too much else to do right now.

I have attempted to transplant those older plants... Doesn't work.
If I had to bring my rosemary indoors for the winter... I'd take a bunch of cuttings.
I've rooted rosemary during the off season... no problem.
Rosemary grows easily from cuttings...