Anyone have experience growing rosemary?
I bought a 1 foot tall rosemary plant from HD, it barely grow over the past 6 months(3rd photo).
And few days ago I visited HD and surprised to find such amazing/bushy rosemary(first two photos). And My main motivation is to grow my own rosemary for cooking, but is not working out.
What am I missing, do HD use secret fertilizer/hormones on the rosemary? And is their rosemary edible?
by KevinC007
25 Comments
1. Full sun
2. Well drained potting mix/soil
3. Fertilise but use a lower dosage than you would with tomatoes etc as too much can either burn the roots or cause leggy growth.
4. Prune to make the rosemary go bushy
4.5 Prune selectively to get it to look like the first picture
5. Patience
Is it getting enough sun, Rosemary really like lots of sun.
Regular feedings and pruning into the shape; bright lights to help keep the whole thing full. Edit added; yours might be going through the deceptive rooting stage, it looks like nothing is happening but once it roots (either to a certain size or the pots allowance) it’ll shoot out tons of above grounds growth.
I’m going to go off on a limb and say it needs more sun. Rosemary grows super fast so long as it gets full sun.
There’s more than one varietal of rosemary. And the rosemary “christmas trees” are upright growing plants that have been pruned for months to achieve their shape. They’re about as natural as topiaries.
I second all that [Eschscholziacalif](https://www.reddit.com/user/Eschscholziacalif/) wrote, that is very solid advice. I put my rosemary in the ground, and mixed 50% sand with 50% soil. The shape is made by trimming, I trained mine into a column bei wrapping it with thin wire, and it now is more than 10 feet tall.
[https://www.reddit.com/r/gardening/comments/1mso9fv/largest_rosemary_ever/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web3x&utm_name=web3xcss&utm_term=1&utm_content=share_button](https://www.reddit.com/r/gardening/comments/1mso9fv/largest_rosemary_ever/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web3x&utm_name=web3xcss&utm_term=1&utm_content=share_button)
Ive had the best luck with rosemary by planting it in a sunny part of my yard and a lot of gentle neglect…
If I ignore it im less likely to accidently over water it and kill it.
My rosemary has never been happier
9 times out of 10 it’s a light issue. Place the pot somewhere it’s going to get a lot of sun
You’ve left out where you live. Rosemary won’t survive a lot of harsh northern winters. I’m in 7b and have several – the ones I have in the ground do much better than the ones i have in large tubs. I generally don’t feed it or worry about the soil. They do need to be trimmed and fun fact – the green tops can be rooted quite easily.
That plant looks like it has been treated with a plant growth regulator to make it grow in that compact fashion. In my opinion, they are nasty chemicals that you don’t want on your food. They are commonly used on cannabis to make stout flowers, but also tend to make the plants extra efficient at pulling heavy metal residues out of soil and fertilizers.
It looks much too wet. It needs great drainage and full sun
Also it has to be coming inside over winter.
Side question, why does my rosemary taste more harsh and not as nice as store bought fresh cut ones?
https://preview.redd.it/jqsi7c57cu8g1.jpeg?width=1290&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=435db0ad15561cd7148f154399477b8efcebe4b8
Thank you for posting this, it so funny and that last photo is great.
I keep bringing it in to overwinter and it always dies.
All rosemary is edible, some of what the commercial nursery industry sprays on it is not.
You have to do a shape prune. Rosemary responds very well to being pruned, and the best eating rosemary is new growth, you get this by cutting it more.
This has been given a very careful shape prune by someone who knows what they’re doing.
Growing for cooking, I’d recommend a variety that tastes good, which is somewhat subjective. I confess to sampling roadside plants till I hit a particularly good one, took a nature strip cutting and planted and propagated from there (rosemary cuttings take fairly well).
You shape it as it grows, it grows fast
Lots of sun and I would get rid of the bark mulch.
For me, rosemary is just difficult to keep. Has to have the right requirements when inside especially. I live in Ct,. Not enough indoor light.
Other problem, you bought it at HD. Their plants are always stressed and who knows what they spray with. They let all their plants droop till they are close to death, then water.
I buy a new one every year. Lot easier.
I bought one of these the other year and didn’t keep up w it so it just filled out like a regular rosemary.
From everything I’ve read treat it like shit and neglect it.
Definitely don’t water it too much, because if it gets too much attention and watering it will die.
If you leave it alone and forget about it then it goes ham and you will need to trim it back.
Good luck – I’m about to plant one and that’s all the knowledge I’ve gotten from reading up on their care.
Plant yours in the worst soil and hottest conditions you can find. It’s literally a weed that grows on rocky hillsides.
The crust as tree style is a bushy growing habit that has been sheered to be a tree.
There are many growth types, some have long branches, short branches , trailing etc.
I have a rosemary plant in a pot that has lived for many years. Mine never gets as full and bushy as that picture, but it consistently grows. Rosemary loves sun and warm weather, and also arrid conditions. My rosemary now lives in an air pot because it got rootbound a few times and I hated having to constantly split the plant (I have cold winters, so it goes indoors). I do feed it fertilizer every once in a while. I also mist it more than I water. If you are in a warm climate, you can plant it in ground and it’ll grow bushy and huge. My friend in San Diego has a huge rosemary shrub in her yard.
The 1st one has been cut and shaped to the shape of a xmas tree. The next ones have been tied up and cut off before displayed. Rosemary will always grow towards the sun. I have 1 at my front step which is in the shade and it grew down and out along the path, so i got a trellis and put it underneath, now it grows up and over the trellis no more trailing on the path. They do better in the ground
I don’t know but my dog pisses on my dying one. Fuck it go to hell roaemary and the rest of my dying plants.