Gardening Tips | How to Grow Rosemary Plant

Rosemary is a perennial evergreen shrub with firm needle like leaves and blue flowers in the mint family. It has wide culinary use as a fresh or dried herb in Italian and Mediterranean dishes, vinegars, and oils.

Rosemary are easy to grow. With the right soil and water conditions, rosemary can grow into a large evergreen hedge in warm areas. Here's what you need to know about growing rosemary.

Sun: Rosemary requires 6 to 8 hours sunlight each day.

Soil: Rosemary like sandy, a reasonable well-draining and an alkaline pH soil. However, rosemary is tolerant of most soil conditions

Water: Rosemary is drought tolerant and can grow well without frequent watering when planted in the ground. However, it is very sensitive to drainage. Too much water drowns the roots and often is the reason that kills a rosemary plant. 

To grow rosemary in pots, water the plant when the surface of soil is just dry. It is important that the soil should never be completely dry out. Thus, always keep your potted rosemary at least a little moist.

Cold Hardiness: You can grow rosemary in the ground all year round if you live in a frost free area. When temperatures dip below -6 degree C. (20 degrees F.), rosemary will show damage. The plants will need to be kept indoors during winter time.

Prune: Rosemary can be pruned anytime during the spring or summer. Pruning rosemary in the warm weather with plentiful sunshine helps the plant produce healthy new foliage. However, pruning it in the late fall or winter time can cause its shrub to focus on growing new tender growth rather then hardening off the old growth.

Avoid cutting below the lower leaves. Removing too much green leaves can harm the plant, causing the plant to grow only woody branches.

Lavender Backyard Garden is New Zealand herb farm. We grow lavender and rosemary, distill premium essential oils and produce quality skin care products.