Rosemary

I don't know what I'm doing wrong with this... Every rosemary plant I either plant from seed, or buy as a small plant, withers away to nothingness :( they're always in pots, I've tried different types of compost, different levels of watering, shade, partial, full sun. Feed or not feed. Nothing ever seems to work :(

 

I'm not very experienced but my rosemary seems to like a hot spot in the garden and it doesn't seem to like a lot of water so I keep it on the dry side.

 

I think they are trying to tell you that they don't like it in pots.

 

I wonder if it's linked with drainage then. My garden is south-facing so it gets as much sun as it'll ever get here. I'll look at my current pot and see what's happening. Thanks @Fern4

 

Would you advise planting out? I've got a sink garden that was here from the previous owners of the house, I've been meaning to make it from a weed bed to a herb garden...

 

Hi Ellen ... I know it's probably not any help me answering you, but they go berserk here ... in clay soil, full sun and completely dry (often without water for months) and they lives for years and years.

I am sure someone will come along and tell you how to make it grow in the UK, but all I will say is don't pamper them!

Good luck (boa sorte)!

PS Whoops, see Fern and Mad have already answered.

 

Thanks Victoria Thinking about it, I have seen some huge rosemary plants over in the south of Spain! I was given a wooden planter box with herbs in, one of which is rosemary, which is looking immensely sorry for itself :( maybe a sandy soil and somewhere more inside would be more preferable?

 

The only thing I personally have seen to harm rosemary is too much water. I had one in a large container that went rapidly yellow after several days of heavy rain, even though the container had drain holes in it. I had to do an emergency rescue job and drill loads of holes into the sides of the container to allow water out and air in. After that my rosemary recovered and several years on, I still have it.

Rosemary is well adapted to going months without water. Think about where it grows wild. In rocky sun baked coastal areas around the Med, where it will absolutely hammer it down for a few days of the year but spend much of the time dry as a bone.

I never water my rosemary bushes, yet they do very well.

 

I guess I would advise that. Rosemaries get to be big woody plants with decent trunks on them so would outgrow a pot fairly rapidly. Left to their own devices they can reach 5' high and across. Maybe they need their roots to roam in order to thrive.

The sink garden would be great for other herbs such as thymes as long as it is well-drained. A collection of low-growing thymes would be nice.

Most herbs perform best in decent soil with some moisture, IME. Small herb gardens in planters often don't work well because the herbs chosen all grow at massively different rates and heights so although they look cute when planted in spring they are strangling each other and flopping about by Autumn. Also annual and biennial herbs die out and leave gaps.

 

Thanks @Madahhlia and @clueless1 I'll take it out tomorrow and plant it separately to everything else. Maybe a spell in the conservatory would work wonders until it gets too cold in there

 

Some of them simply can't thrive in pots, because they've adapted to need extensive roots. It always bugs me when I see ready planted herb planters in the likes of B&Q, and they feature Parsley, a plant that develops an extensive tap root that simply cant fit in a pot, and which, if allowed to do its own thing, easily grows 3ft tall and the same across, as opposed to a few limp leaves flopping out the side dying.

 

Rosemary is not afraid of the cold. While it is a Med herb, mine has survived prolonged periods of minus 10'C during a few harsh winters. In fact, if you keep it too warm (warm enough to be active) over winter when there isn't enough light for it, it will grow rapidly but weak and straggly, so you wont be doing it any favours.

 

I agree clueless.

We have managed to keep rosemary despite the severe winters here, either in the ground, or in pots (I never water my rosemary pots - cruel woman that I am!)

 

I was wondering if you have "Rosemary Beetle" and it keeps reinfecting.