Rosemary Tree

I just brought home this Rosemary tree I have wanted one for ages and when I saw this little guy I couldn't help myself. Any suggestions?

Isn't that beautiful? I'd put it in a bigger pot before too long, but it looks great. Mine likes alfalfa tea.

It came in a plastic pot and I just moved it up a size. The instructions said don't let it dry out and I'm one of those flood or drought types so I'll have to be very careful. I keep thinking I should go get another one. Wouldn't a pair of them look great on the patio this summer? That is if I don't kill them over winter. ;} Holly

That looks beautiful!!! I am jealous. I keep seeing those in catalogues, but I never am up for ordering one. And I just haven't seen any in local stores... Otherwise I would have brought home at least one!

On second thought, DH would probably scream if I brought home another rosemary. I've got my HUGE rosemary from my garden in a pot in the guest room (it's really sad and hates it indoors), and a little one that I'm looking after for the winter for my mother. But oh..... how I want a rosemary tree.

I picked this up in Giant Food Mkt. I wandered over to the flower dept to get some cut flowers and there it was. Much cheaper than any others I've seen.

HollyAnnS,
What a gourgeous plant. Congratulations!

I have overwintered rosemary last year. For some reason it did not like it too much, despite the fact that
the house is @78F year around. It looked pretty miserable by the spring but got right back in shape after
I took it out. I am just 1.5 zones too cold for rosemary in the garden. You are so lucky that you can actually
grow rosemary outside.

Yea, Better watch out that Zone Envy will get you. ;} I get a case of Zone Envy every time I look at the Morning Glories and realize that down south they can just leave them in the ground all year long and I can only plant them as annuals. I have it sitting next to my couch and just brush my fingers across it in the evening it smells wonderful. Holly

Yes, I can have morning glories perennially, but sure can't grow apples -- insufficient chill time! And it's too hot here for sweet peas to be anything but annual!

Zone envy -- as if there weren't enough gardening dilemmas! I guess "bloom where you're planted" is the truth! ;)

I just received this in a newsletter and thought all here might find it interesting....

Decorate a Rosemary Christmas Tree
I love to grow things, and I especially love to have plants around the house in the winter. I really adore rosemary plants and those cute little "rosemary Christmas trees," but the problem was I always managed to kill them!

My local food store always has healthy, inexpensive plants, so I asked them how they keep their rosemary Christmas trees looking so beautiful. The floral manager told me, "Rosemary can be tricky, but anyone who learns the trick can take care of one and they can get quite big. The secret to rosemary is that it likes to be constantly moist but doesn't like to sit in the water, so it has to be well drained. Rosemary hates water around its roots, but it will die if the roots dry out. Just like some people, it likes to shower everyday, but not sit in a bath!"

Caring for Rosemary
When you get your plant home from the store, place it (pot and all) into a larger pot filled with gravel. Be sure the bigger pot has a hole at the bottom for drainage. You can place all of this on a plant saucer to catch water.

Water your rosemary (at the base of the plant) every day or every other day. It doesn't need much, perhaps half a cup. Let the water run right through the plant and out into the saucer (be sure to empty the saucer). I just put my plants in the sink every morning and water them that way, letting all the water go down the drain. Then I put them back in place with something under them to catch more water.

Every once in while, give the rosemary a "bath," gently rinsing off any dead leaves and other debris (but not the soil!) that tend to build up around the base of the plant. You can let it soak for a little while, and then drain very well.

Like most plants, rosemary likes humidity, so you can take the plant to the shower with you. Once a week or every couple weeks, put it on a bathroom counter, close the door, and take a long, steamy shower. Your plant will love you and you'll feel pretty good, too!

Decorating the Tree
You can use any mini ornaments and lights, as long as they don't weigh much. Rosemary branches are rather tender. Decorations should be easily removed for watering and misting.

I saw a very cute idea done on a mini tree that would work well for rosemary. Spray-paint uncooked bowtie pasta red, then hot-glue string or twist ties onto the back and attach them to the tree. You could even make a star out of gold gift-wrap and light cardboard (like cereal-box cardboard) to put at the top.

Now that my rosemary trees are looking so much better, I'm going to deck them out. Good luck, and enjoy your culinary Christmas tree!

Your rosemary plant sounds rather cosseted. I'm surprised about the advice on it liking humidity as it is naturally a Mediterranean plant and grows on stony sunbaked hillsides. I've also seen it growing in Tunisia which was even hotter. The gritty, well drained soil is ideal and my rosemary plants all survive frost and snow here in the north of England so long as they don't stand in water. I do take plenty of cuttings in autumn though, just in case.

I was surprised too. Much for the same reason as you. I have a Rosemary planted out in my garden that doesn’t get any special treatment and over winters here in Zone 6. It is thriving. Unfortunately my Rosemary Tree has bit the dust. I was so disappointed. I’ve wanted one for such a long time and it only lasted a couple of weeks. First the leaves drooped and then turned black, not all at one time just one part then another part till it was all gone. I really followed the directions about watering which is an effort for me. I’m a very casual gardener. The directions said if it dried out just once it would die. I only had it about a week when I started to have trouble with it. I am wondering if something happened before I got it? At least I hope so I usually do better than that with my plants and I didn’t find any obvious insects. It was purchased at a grocery store not a nursery so there is no going back and asking about it.

So sorry HollyAnnS ~ I'll bet you are right. Who knows what treatment it rec'd before you got it.

Sorry you lost your Rosemary tree. As you say you have no idea if it was already on its way out when you bought it. There has been a virus affecting Rosemary quite badly this year here and the advice is to cut off and burn any parts of the plant as soon as they start to die back or the whole plant will die quite quickly. I managed to save one of mine by cutting quite a large chunk of it off. I thought it might have been broken as it died off all of a sudden, but there wasn't any damage showing. It looks nice and healthy again now and all the other plants are OK, but it is worth checking them over occasionally.

Perhaps you could raise your own tree, they grow very easily from cuttings. It just takes a bit longer.

I'm so sorry you lost your rosemary HollyAnnS. I'm surprised you have rosemaries outside that survive. I guess it's the cold wet springs that get them here in MI. I've only known a couple people that have planted them next to a foundation in really well drained soil that have had the stronger varieties make it through the winter. I have to keep mine in a cold frame or greenhouse.

I learned something a few years ago I'd like to share. The rosemaries being sold in grocery chains and places like Home Depot are usually coming from a big grower in sunny southern California. They're put in a dark truck and shipped in Oct.-Nov.-Dec. They're displayed indoors without being aclimated to the lower light conditions in a store. Then we take them home and put them indoors without enough direct light. Our homes are too warm and too dry. They'd prefer something around 60o with more humidity. The watering method above sounds good. Although I find mine do better in clay than plastic pots so they can breath. Anyway the light is the key. A rosemary that has been grown outside with an abundance of light has leaves that are thick, strong and narrow and less efficient at converting light energy into food. The plant needs to be placed in the shade and hardened off long enough to grow new leaves that are thinner, more delicate and broader, better able to convert the energy from lower light into food. This is why when these rosemaries are brought indoors the leaves that are used to higher light situations turn brown and drop off. They can't produce enough food. The plant tries to compensate by shedding these leaves and growing new ones nearer a light source. The leaf drop can appear in a few days or even in weeks if the plant wasn't properly addapted to the new light conditions. So, you have rosemaries that die within a few weeks even to a few months after being brought home. Because in the winter they are slow growing they slowly starve to death before they can produce new leaves to compensate for lower light sources. Hope this info helps.

By starting with a smaller rosemary and growing your own tree you would have better control over the light conditionals and probably be more successful. My biggest problem with rosemary in the winter is powdery mildew. Too much humidity in my GH. I've used a very mild solution of baking soda (to much burns the leaves). I had a friend once who used a solution of lisol with some success. But not sure I want to go that route. I've tried safer's fungiside in the past, doesn't seem to do any better than baking soda. But every year about this time I start doing battle on my rosemaries and sages with this pesty stuff. I remove effected leaves, etc. And still it comes. So each year I just hope I can get the effected plants through the winter. Might have to move the ones that have it out to the cold frame. But don't know if they'd make the transition this late in the season. Although it's been pretty warm here so far this winter. Anyone have any special mildew remedies to share?

I'd like to know more about the virus you were talking about Patbarr. I've run into some die back on one of my rosemaries, but hadn't heard about a virus affecting them here.
Jeane

Thanks for the help I can use all the suggestions I can get. I usually do pretty well with house plants. I am a casual gardener and if I have problems I know what they are. Usually just getting to busy and OH look at those plants droop! Not enough to kill them just drop a few leaves or something obvious like spider mites. Since I knew I couldn’t let this one dry out I was being very careful with it not to wet or dry, I thought. I had repotted it into a clay pot, my favorite type. I have a passive solar house so it should have gotten enough sun but I didn’t put it too close to the windows so as not to fry it. I set it on a table next to the couch at first I thought I might have handled it too much. Occasionally when I was sitting and reading I would brush it lightly to release some scent. First the leaves in just one area drooped then they turned brown. The rest of the tree looked fine then a couple of days later another section would do the same thing. I did notice that my tree was made up of several different plants and there would be a couple of days between each part (or plant) starting the process. I will say it did look very good when I bought it. It started to decline about a week after I got it and the whole process after the decline took maybe 3 weeks. If the plant had been dried out or a problem with the light wouldn’t you think it would have affected the whole tree at one time not section by section over a 3 week period?

Sounds like you did everything right. Will have to try to find out more about the virus Patbarr mentioned as I've never heard of it. I had one section of one of large rosemaries die recently. No idea why. It's a Salem and their usually quite hardy. Can't see anything wrong with it.

Oh, sorry you lost your rosemary tree... they're so pretty in the stores, but I haven't had much luck with them either.

I do have a big potted rosemary that I've been successfully overwintering inside for several years now, but from the way it looks currently I think it's desperately in need of repotting (bigger pot or maybe just root pruning; I'll see what it looks like when I unpot it).

I checked DeBaggio's site because they generally have good culture info, and I'm happy to report they've revamped their web site... love the new little pop-up articles! Here's the rosemary page: http://www.debaggioherbs.com/rosemary.php?page=1

Thanks for the link.

Holly: I was just reading over this thread and the same thing happened to me. My boss gave everyone at our office one of those rosemary christmas trees along with some miniature decorations to hang on them. Within about 1 week, everyone's tree started looking dried out and brown leaves began to appear. Everyone had been watering them so they said, and I know I had watered mine plenty. I wondered if they werent diseased or something.