The Rosemary Thread

[leatherback]

They are all container grown from cuttings. My climate doesn’t allow ground growing.

I admit to not reading the whole thread. But I am concluding that you avoid repotting these too? Any cultivation tips you could give? For the last few years I have been letting a cutting run wild in my greenhouse, cutting back once a year andspding the roots every spring. Might have to consider liftin it into a pot..

 

[hinmo24t]

@hinmo24t
Mine started out like that....patience, patience. That one looks like an upright variety, although it can be hard to tell when they're babies. Did it have a name tag?

it has the upright look going for it, no tag unfortunately.
what attracted me to it was the roots (aerial looking roots), branch structure, and the overall vigor of it/bark.
for $4 i grabbed it.



looks like consensus is leave outside as much as possible and sunny until temps are below 40*....our nights are dropping below 40 now so
i have to find a 'cool, bright spot' inside i think is what i read

 

[ABCarve]

@leatherback Not sure what andspding the roots means. Is that German? They mostly don't like small pots and heavy root work, but you can see my smaller one is in a shallow one. Early spring seems to be the best time for repot. You might want to read more of the thread to get an idea of the ups and downs.

 

[Vin]

@leatherback Not sure what andspding the roots means. Is that German? They mostly don't like small pots and heavy root work, but you can see my smaller one is in a shallow one. Early spring seems to be the best time for repot. You might want to read more of the thread to get an idea of the ups and downs.

Well said! Go left. No, go right. No, go right down the middle. Awwwe, missed it. LOL! Rosemary = don't commit to anything you've tried before as it probably won't happen again. Gotta love 'em.

 

[leatherback]

@leatherback Not sure what andspding the roots means. Is that German? They mostly don't like small pots and heavy root work, but you can see my smaller one is in a shallow one. Early spring seems to be the best time for repot. You might want to read more of the thread to get an idea of the ups and downs.

spading the roots -> taking a spade and cutting the roots.

 

[Vin]

spading the roots -> taking a spade and cutting the roots.

Yes, that does help with survivability once you do get it out of the ground. I have done this in the Spring, Summer & Fall of the year before removal and it seems to help. Last year I just dug one up without "spading" and it is struggling for sure. You can call it "root acclimation". Probably a bunch of nonsense but it seems to work.

 

[leatherback]

Probably a bunch of nonsense but it seems to work.

Na, don't think it is nonsense. Works for many species

 

[ABCarve]

it has the upright look going for it, no tag unfortunately.
what attracted me to it was the roots (aerial looking roots), branch structure, and the overall vigor of it/bark.
for $4 i grabbed it.



looks like consensus is leave outside as much as possible and sunny until temps are below 40*....our nights are dropping below 40 now so
i have to find a 'cool, bright spot' inside i think is what i read

Sorry I missed this earlier. You can probably leave it out with even cooler temps. My smaller one got left out in early spring accidentally when it was 30 F. over night. Didn't skip a beat. Cool bright spot is ideal. Those roots you're looking at......they will develop into five life veins that go up the trunk and be very apparent as it gains some caliper.

 

[LittleDingus]

I mentioned rosemary as a potential "houseplant bonsai" thinking they were easy. I've had one for years indoors as part of a herb collection to cook with...not as a houseplant or bonsai. But it has always grown well for me to the degree that I was surprised these were considered "hard" or "finicky". Since I grow it as an herb for cooking, I've never really thought about how to grow them properly except not to let it freeze. I figured if it died, my wife would just pick up another one at the farmer's market

We've had this one for 4-5 years now. My daughter is broiling rosemary chicken later today so I figured, why not play a little?? It's New Years Day, 30F and snowing outside. Not the best time of year for this so maybe I'll be killing it...but at least my first kill of the new year will be cheap and easy to replace

Here is the plant I started with:



My goals for today were to repot the plant into something inorganic and try and get it down to <4" of soil depth and thin out the top growth to see better what's under there...maybe start a few cuttings to see what would happen.

This plant was in just over 6" of soil in a 10" round pot. Maybe a little bit pot-bound.



As I started raking out the roots I found 2 lower branches that were self rooting. I dug them out to pot separately.



I ended up combing off about 2/3 of the existing root mass.



There weren't anything I would call "thick" roots. Not much of a nebari either. I think all the roots that raked off were thinner than 1/16". I cut nothing...everything that came off was combed off.

I stuck each branch with roots in a small pot and added a few clippings to each pot as well.



And then I snipped branches to thin out the top and open up the middle some. I didn't take too much...maybe 1/3 of the total foliage. If it survives my abuse until spring, I might pot it up to something wider and move it outside to see if it will grow out enough to make something respectable with. For now, I kept a lot of green down low because people say they do not back bud.

Some of these cutting will become dinner tonight



...and here is where I stopped.



It doesn't look significantly different. But it is now in only 3 1/2" of DE instead of 6" of Miracle Grow. It is considerably more open internally as well. I also got 2 pre-rooted cuttings and started 4 branch cuttings as well. And I get rosemary chicken for dinner!

Now we wait and see if my luck with rosemary continues...

 

[ABCarve]

I mentioned rosemary as a potential "houseplant bonsai" thinking they were easy. I've had one for years indoors as part of a herb collection to cook with...not as a houseplant or bonsai. But it has always grown well for me to the degree that I was surprised these were considered "hard" or "finicky". Since I grow it as an herb for cooking, I've never really thought about how to grow them properly except not to let it freeze. I figured if it died, my wife would just pick up another one at the farmer's market

We've had this one for 4-5 years now. My daughter is broiling rosemary chicken later today so I figured, why not play a little?? It's New Years Day, 30F and snowing outside. Not the best time of year for this so maybe I'll be killing it...but at least my first kill of the new year will be cheap and easy to replace

Here is the plant I started with:

View attachment 347296

My goals for today were to repot the plant into something inorganic and try and get it down to <4" of soil depth and thin out the top growth to see better what's under there...maybe start a few cuttings to see what would happen.

This plant was in just over 6" of soil in a 10" round pot. Maybe a little bit pot-bound.

View attachment 347298

As I started raking out the roots I found 2 lower branches that were self rooting. I dug them out to pot separately.

View attachment 347299

I ended up combing off about 2/3 of the existing root mass.

View attachment 347308 View attachment 347309

There weren't anything I would call "thick" roots. Not much of a nebari either. I think all the roots that raked off were thinner than 1/16". I cut nothing...everything that came off was combed off.

I stuck each branch with roots in a small pot and added a few clippings to each pot as well.

View attachment 347304

And then I snipped branches to thin out the top and open up the middle some. I didn't take too much...maybe 1/3 of the total foliage. If it survives my abuse until spring, I might pot it up to something wider and move it outside to see if it will grow out enough to make something respectable with. For now, I kept a lot of green down low because people say they do not back bud.

Some of these cutting will become dinner tonight

View attachment 347305

...and here is where I stopped.

View attachment 347306

It doesn't look significantly different. But it is now in only 3 1/2" of DE instead of 6" of Miracle Grow. It is considerably more open internally as well. I also got 2 pre-rooted cuttings and started 4 branch cuttings as well. And I get rosemary chicken for dinner!

Now we wait and see if my luck with rosemary continues...

Good luck with this! Give us an update in a few months....

 

[leatherback]

Good luck with this! Give us an update in a few months....

really hope this one does not die. But other experiences...

 

[LittleDingus]

Here is the plant I started with:

View attachment 347296

...

Some of these cutting will become dinner tonight

View attachment 347305

I wonder if there's something to age and/or size about these that makes them difficult sometimes?? I'll admit this is about the biggest rosemary I've kept indoors. There's been no noticeable change in either the main plant or the potted cuttings yet...wasn't expecting there to be yet either

What I wanted to update on is that I kept the extra cuttings to see what would happen. Some leaves were pinched for dinner, but the cuttings are otherwise just sitting on the kitchen counter in rather dim light. I've been wondering if they'd root. My wife likes to pet them when she walks by because she likes the smell of rosemary so we both agreed they could just sit there for a while and see what happens

Just shy of 1 week later, some are starting to root! I didn't pull them all to look, but here's one of the smaller cuttings:



and here is the largest:



The roots from the largest are budding out from above the water line.

This is more how I'm used to rosemary behaving...pretty robustly!

These are nowhere near the size of that monster @ABCarve has! But it makes me wonder if age plays into how well they deal with change?? My plant is only about 4 years old and a little over 16" above the soil line. I haven't seen it flower yet.

I'm very curious now to see what I can do with it! I'm thinking about repotting again in the spring (assuming it lives) into an even wider grow bag and put it outside in the sun to try and beef it up!

 

[AlainK]

Well, it's very, very hard to make a "rosemary bonsai".

The trunk, the bark can be interesting, but the shoots are very long, and the flowers even longer.

Sorry to say but I've seen several attempts, none of them convincing. Like parsley, sage, rosemary and thyme, I think that they are excellent herbs for health and cooking, but very poor candidates for bonsai.

 

[LittleDingus]

Well, it's very, very hard to make a "rosemary bonsai".

Depends oh how strict you are about your bonsai I guess. ABCarve's rosemary back in post 98 is remarkable to me. Some of the others in this thread that have more of a weeping style catch me fancy as well.

Bonsai?? That word has so little meaning outside the formal world of shows and judging that I tend not to use it myself. I openly admit this or any of my trees are not "bonsai"...

 

[leatherback]

I wonder if there's something to age and/or size about these that makes them difficult sometimes?

I feel they just do not like their roots to be touched.
I found our hedges are frost-proof where I live UNLESS I prune them after mid-summer. Then a single night of frost does damage. Since we stopped pruning them after early september, they seem to do fine

This is more how I'm used to rosemary behaving...pretty robustly!

Yeah, cuttings are very easy. I get 90%+ strike rate.
Transplanting has always been an issue through. So I grow cuttings in pots to plant in their final spot, not to be moved. But .. I am inspired to try again to go in direction bonsai.

 

[leatherback]

Sorry to say but I've seen several attempts, none of them convincing. Like parsley, sage, rosemary and thyme, I think that they are excellent herbs for health and cooking, but very poor candidates for bonsai.

Not sure here Alain. Not seeing them as succesfull bonsai might just be because of the trouble with repotting. I have seen great yamadori thyme on the coastal rocks in Spain. I have seen amazing contorted rosemary trunks in the forests in the mediteranean. But if they cannot be collected, you are left with growing trunks yourself, which takes a long time. Add the challenges with rootwork and you have a species which is a challenge to keep. The growth habit I find very good for bonsai. Fast growing, flexible when young, setting fast and immobile after maturing. Small foliage that creates dense bundles, reliably extending if pruned back to. What is not to like?

 

[Rivka]

if you folks were going to play with potting up a med/lg landscape rosemary, what steps would you do and when?
i have one with a solid 2” trunk (though clearly some shari deadwood portions of trunk that the below ground portion rotted long ago) I’m more interested in learning and exploring than fretting over the plant as a whole.
it is coming out one way or the other, the area in my yard is being restyled and this no longer gets the sun it craves as it sits under a broad vigorous fruiting pear tree we are fond of and certainly not cutting back. (Too yummy)
It’s mid winter here, we are 8b Csb Mediterranean Oceanic so our low temps rarely dipping below freezing for more than a handful of days here and there, that said our coldest temps tend to be about a month from now.

So.... spade trim the roots back? work it in the ground for a while? Air layer right near ground level to ditch the big roots?

Ill post some pictures tomorrow, i could have sworn i had them on this device, bit i don't seem to.

 

[leatherback]

spade trim the roots back

This is what I am planning on doing on a plant I have in the greenhouse that is getting too large, blocking the entrance by mid-summer. It was cut to the last bits of green in fall. In spring trim the roots. Retrim roots and branches again in fall. Then lift in March or so 2022.

 

[ABCarve]

if you folks were going to play with potting up a med/lg landscape rosemary, what steps would you do and when?
i have one with a solid 2” trunk (though clearly some shari deadwood portions of trunk that the below ground portion rotted long ago) I’m more interested in learning and exploring than fretting over the plant as a whole.
it is coming out one way or the other, the area in my yard is being restyled and this no longer gets the sun it craves as it sits under a broad vigorous fruiting pear tree we are fond of and certainly not cutting back. (Too yummy)
It’s mid winter here, we are 8b Csb Mediterranean Oceanic so our low temps rarely dipping below freezing for more than a handful of days here and there, that said our coldest temps tend to be about a month from now.

So.... spade trim the roots back? work it in the ground for a while? Air layer right near ground level to ditch the big roots?

Ill post some pictures tomorrow, i could have sworn i had them on this device, bit i don't seem to.

I think the problem will be getting the whole root ball into bonsai soil. I’ve never had a problem root pruning/repotting as long as I just cut the small fiberous feeder roots on the outside of the root ball. My large specimen was a cutting and raised entirely in bonsai soil and the smaller one in post #84 was in ordinary potting soil. The core of the root ball still is. I try picking it out with a chopstick now and then and covering it with substrate.
If you notice the live veins growing around the trunk (5 or 6) of your plants, each is related to one of the larger root networks below. You can only see them on older plants. If it’s disrupted too much the vein will die. The deadwood in both of my trees were from trying to get it into a smaller pot. If you go back through this thread you’ll see it happen.
So my recommendation is grow it in substrate to begin with and always pot up and never pot down. I also believe that younger plants can take more insults.

 

[Rivka]

This is what I am planning on doing on a plant I have in the greenhouse that is getting too large, blocking the entrance by mid-summer. It was cut to the last bits of green in fall. In spring trim the roots. Retrim roots and branches again in fall. Then lift in March or so 2022.

Thoughts on when to spade trim? Are you planning on going all the way around in one shot get it over with? or doing it in two waves, (e.g. doing N/S/E/W trim one time and NE/SE/SW/NW in the next round?)

and thoughts on timing of top trim and root spading and eventually repotting. Things to make sure are done first or last?
Mine has a larger top, and I ponder how to balance letting it keep green to feed itself, while also wishing to take general load off the plant so its not trying to support (physically or nutrient wise) so much while i mess with its roots.

I think the problem will be getting the whole root ball into bonsai soil. I’ve never had a problem root pruning/repotting as long as I just cut the small fiberous feeder roots on the outside of the root ball. My large specimen was a cutting and raised entirely in bonsai soil and the smaller one in post #84 was in ordinary potting soil. The core of the root ball still is. I try picking it out with a chopstick now and then and covering it with substrate.
If you notice the live veins growing around the trunk (5 or 6) of your plants, each is related to one of the larger root networks below. You can only see them on older plants. If it’s disrupted too much the vein will die. The deadwood in both of my trees were from trying to get it into a smaller pot. If you go back through this thread you’ll see it happen.
So my recommendation is grow it in substrate to begin with and always pot up and never pot down. I also believe that younger plants can take more insults.

yeah i have re the entire thread twice and appreciate the good documenting you have done.
I'm well aware that my plans are not a good idea. However this plant will end up in the compost pile if it does not move and it is over grown and mismanaged already, so it gets to live a wild and crazy life and take risks.

basically, i was not asking if i should, i was asking advice on how best to not listen to the rest of your advice, sorry