Rosemary is mostly used as a herb in several culinary dishes to boost the aroma of foods. Besides being a top favorite in the kitchen, rosemary is also used to make essential oils and perfumes. Last but not the least, gardeners love to grow rosemary as the flowers can brighten up gardens with their beauty and fragrance.
It is an evergreen shrub that is popular with home gardeners for its hardiness and low maintenance. Outdoor or indoors wherever you grow them, rosemary plants can live for many years after establishing themselves fully in the soil beds or containers. Check out this article for rosemary gardening tips that will help you plant and care for your rosemary plants in an easier way.
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Benefits of Growing Rosemary Plant
Insects Repellant:
Though we are mesmerized by the beautiful fragrance of rosemary plants, insects hate their smell! If you are regularly bothered by a swarm of mosquitoes in your home, grow some rosemary plants to repel these stubborn mosquitoes.
Rosemary plants are also useful for repelling flies, ticks, and several harmful bugs from your outdoor and home gardens. Insects get too irritated by their spicy smell and start avoiding the places where rosemary grows. Thus, you can swap harmful chemicals with this natural repellent to keep your home and garden safe.
Attract Pollinators:
Growing rosemary will also help in the pollination of the other flowers in your garden. The smell of this aromatic shrub helps in attracting bees, butterflies, and even hummingbirds!
By attracting these useful insects and birds, rosemary helps to boost production through pollination. Thus, it attracts useful insects and eliminates harmful ones.
Health Benefits:
Rosemary has several health benefits too! Besides giving a spicy aroma to the dishes, the herb provides us with beneficial nutrients like Calcium, Iron, and Vitamin B6.
You can also drink rosemary tea to soothe your muscle pain and improve blood circulation. If you suffer regularly from arthritis, you can try using this remedy for reducing joint aches.
Improve Breathing and Digestive Issues:
The smell of rosemary is very useful for relaxing your breathing while calming your mind. It also helps the lungs to breathe properly by reducing congestion. Thus, the benefits of the rosemary plant indoors mostly indicate the easiness of breathing in its presence.
If you feel breathing difficulty, you may boil some rosemary leaves in hot water and try taking the vapor in from a safe distance to feel at ease. If you often suffer from heartburn, bloating, or gas, you can drink rosemary tea to reduce these digestive issues.
Popular Rosemary Varieties
Blue Boy Rosemary:
With blue flowers and amazing fragrances, Blue Boy Rosemary is a favorite among gardeners. This variety of rosemary plants grows 2 feet tall and needs 6 hours of direct full sun to thrive.
Pine Scented Rosemary:
Pine Scented Rosemary grows 3-4 feet tall and gives beautiful deep blue fragrant flowers that will soothe your eyes and soul. They thrive well in the full sun and can be used in several dishes to boost the aroma.
Spice Island Rosemary:
Spice Island Rosemary grows 3-4 feet tall and gives lavender-blue flowers. The leaves are popular for seasoning different meats, fish, and potatoes for their extremely mouth-watering flavor.
White Rosemary:
This unique variety of rosemary plants comes with sweetly fragrant white flowers and thick green leaves that are arranged in the stem similar to needles. The plant grows 4-6 feet tall and thrives well in the full sun. The smell is popular for making essential oils and toiletries.
Tuscan Blue:
Tuscan Blue is one of the most popular varieties of rosemary plants that grow 3-4 feet tall and gives beautiful bright blue fragrant flowers. This low-maintenance plant thrives well in the full sun. You can use the fresh or dried leaves in several dishes to enhance the aroma.
Arp:
This rosemary variety grows up to 4 feet tall and produces bright blue flowers in the spring season. They need exposure to full sun for healthy growth. You can use the herb for enhancing the flavor of several dishes of lamb, beef, and pork.
Irene:
If you want to decorate the walls or fences of your garden, you may select this climbing variety of rosemary plants. With bright blue fragrant flowers, Irene spreads over the walls providing an aesthetic view of your garden.
Gorizia:
Gorizia grows up to 4-6 feet tall and it has a larger as well as thicker shape than the other rosemary varieties. The light blue flowers increase Gorizia’s beauty more. You can use the fragrant leaves to season the stuffings of sausages or meat pies.
Majorca Pink:
With beautiful bright pink flowers, Majorca pink is one of the prettiest varieties of rosemary plants that grow up to 2-3 feet tall. As the plant thrives in the full sun, grow it on the patio or open balcony of your home. The fragrance of the leaves is perfect for making rosemary butter, loaves of bread, or vinegar.
Miss Jessop’s Upright:
This variety of rosemary plants grows well in partially shaded but sunny places. The plant grows up to 5 feet tall and the flowers are pale blue. As Miss Jessop’s Upright has a lush and bushy structure, you can create beautiful hedges with this plant for your outdoor garden.
How to Plant and Grow Rosemary from Seeds ?
- Select a small container or a seed planting tray with drainage holes and fill it with a well-drained potting mix. You can buy the potting mix from the store or can make it by yourself by mixing an equal amount of peat moss and horticultural grit.
- Don’t forget to add a little bit of water to the potting mix to moisturize it lightly before you fill the container with it.
- Spread 3 to 4 rosemary seeds in each container or seed trays. Cover the seeds loosely with a bit of your potting mix. Avoid covering the seeds fully to give them exposure to sunlight.
- Take a spray can or bottle to spray water on the seeds so that the seeds and potting mix are lightly moist. Now cover the container or seed tray with a plastic wrapper.
- Take the seed tray and place it on the balcony or patio where it gets direct full sunlight for 2 to 4 weeks. Don’t forget to check the seedlings once in a while. If the potting mix gets dry, mist with some water to moisten it lightly, and then cover the tray again.
- After germination, place the container or tray over a tray filled with water and place the tray where direct sunlight reaches. Remove the plastic cover. The seedlings will soak the water from the water tray.
- Wait until your seedlings grow 3-6 inches tall to transfer them to bigger containers or soil beds. Indoors or outdoor wherever you plant your rosemary, ensure that the soil is well-drained and rich with compost.
- Place your container in a bright and sunny place where your rosemary plant will receive 6-8 hours of full and direct sunlight daily to thrive well.
How to Plant and Grow Rosemary From Cuttings
- If you want to grow rosemary from cuttings, cut about 4-6 inches long stem with no flowers. Ensure cutting with sharp scissors for a neat cut and select new stems that are soft.
- Keep only the upper 1/3rd of your cutting with leaves and pinch leaves from the rest. Now take a jar and fill it with water.
- Place the jar beside a window or a convenient warm place where sunlight reaches indirectly. Now put your cutting in the jar. Change the water regularly after 2 or 3 days until the root grows in the cutting.
- If the cutting turns into brown color, place another cutting in the jar with the same process. Within a few weeks, roots will grow in the cutting and you need to transfer the rosemary cutting from the jar.
- Take some small containers and fill them with well-drained and loamy compost mixed soil. Make a 3-inch deep hole in the soil and plant one cutting in this hole of each container. After planting, water the soil properly.
- Place the containers in a bright place of your home where sunlight reaches indirectly. Water the soil whenever it seems to dry out. After the establishment of the root, transfer the plant into a larger container and place it in a bright place where your rosemary will get daily exposure to full sunlight for 6-8 hours.
How to Care for Rosemary Plant Indoors?
Full Sunlight:
Rosemary plants thrive in the full sunlight. To ensure their daily exposure to bright and direct sunlight for at least 6-8 hours, plant them in a suitable place where they will get an adequate amount of sunlight for their healthy growth.
Growing rosemary in pots is more useful for feeding your rosemary plants with ample sunlight as you can place the pots on your balcony, terrace, patio, or window still easily.
Do Not Overwater:
As rosemary plants are tolerant of drought and heat after they are well established in their growing medium, you do not need to overwater your plants.
Overwatering damages the health of your plant. Excess moisture in the soil is the root cause of getting infected by several fungal diseases of the rosemary plant.
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Proper Air Circulation:
Keep almost 2-3 feet of space between the rosemary plants in containers or soil beds. This space will ensure they get proper air circulation that is beneficial to their healthy growth.
Moreover, adequate air will help to dry out the excess water in the soil and keep your rosemary plants thriving.
Harvest and Pruning:
The best time to harvest fresh rosemary leaves is in the morning. Take sharp pruning scissors and cut the leaves from the stem. Harvesting and pruning the leaves regularly will give your rosemary plant a fuller shape.
It will also boost the production of healthy and fresh leaves that you can use in your dishes well. Moreover, regular pruning will help to keep your indoor growing rosemary plant small and neat.
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Preserving the Leaves:
Dried rosemary leaves are great for making ground spice that stays well for a few months. If you want to make rosemary spice for culinary use, you can dry the leaves with stems by hanging them on your balcony or patio.
After they are fully sun-dried, collect the dry leaves from the stem and keep them in an airtight box. Later you can use a grinder to make rosemary spice and preserve it in your spice jar.
Pests and Diseases of Rosemary
Cottony Soft Rot:
Cottony soft rot is a fungal disease that may attack rosemary plants at high temperatures. If this fungus attacks your plant, it may dry away quickly without showing any noticeable symptoms.
The plan may turn into a straw yellow color while drying and black fungal bodies with cottony white substance can be seen above the root surface.
Downy Mildew:
This is a common fungal disease of rosemary plants that can spread due to cold temperatures and moist conditions. If downy mildew attacks your rosemary plants, the leaves turn into yellow color while whitish gray fungus grows on them.
Give your plant adequate space to circulate air properly for drying the access moisture.
Crown Gall:
Crown gall is caused by bacteria that may have entered your rosemary plants through any cut or wound.
You can recognize this disease if you notice swelling on the roots or stems of your rosemary plants that may turn darker while growing large.
FAQs
If your rosemary plants keep dying, it is due to a lack of proper care and environment for their healthy growth. Pay attention if you are overwatering your rosemary plants or fail to give them access to full sunlight.
You should also keep your plants in regular check to protect them from pests and diseases while ensuring a balanced humid temperature. Maintaining these factors properly will keep your rosemary plants from dying early.
Coffee grounds may work as an excellent fertilizer for most plants. Before using the grounds as fertilizer, wet the dry coffee grounds well and sprinkle an average amount on the soil.
Unless you do not want to hamper the growth of your rosemary plant, trim the flowers as soon as it starts budding. If you want to use rosemary flowers for culinary use, you can let the plant bloom flowers as much as it can.
If you can ensure giving them enough hours of full sunlight, your rosemary plants can live for 30 long years with minimal maintenance.
For their healthy growth and boost of production, rosemary plants mostly need fertilizers that are enriched with Nitrogen, Magnesium, Sulpher, Potassium, and Phosphorus.
The aromatic leaves of rosemary plants are used to enhance the smell and taste of several dishes like curries, soups, salads, and herbal teas. Thus, you can use fresh rosemary leaves or dry them while cooking.
Growing rosemary in pots is more convenient if you live in an urban setting or like to snip the fresh leaves instantly while cooking. This low-maintenance evergreen shrub is popular for its spicy fragrance and easy-going nature. Follow this article for some easy rosemary gardening tips and start growing this beneficial plant in your indoor or outdoor garden.