When do i prune my rosemary

These tips for pruning rosemary bushes are easy to do but important in the overall look and health of the plant. Knowing how to prune rosemary plants will make for a happy plant that gives you sprigs of lovely flavor for cooking. Currently you have JavaScript disabled.

In order to post comments, please make sure JavaScript and Cookies are enabled, and reload the page. Click here for instructions on how to enable JavaScript in your browser. Hi Carol, my rosemary plant which is about 6 years old,is about 5 feet around and ft. Is that an OK idea or what do you suggest? Plant is up on tier two, and flowing down into tier one, interfering.

How to cut it back to control it, and match size and bushiness of entire plant. Thank you. It is hard to describe the in a comment. Basically, trim the plant to the size of the pot, cutting overflowing branches off. This is great advice - thank you. I have a large Woody rosemary bush in my flower garden and need to hard prune.

Where on the Woody stem do you make the cut? Just cut the wood back to about 6 inches from the ground. The woody growth will just get more and more woody if not removed. Older rosemary plants will get very woody, just as you describe and definitely need the woody sections cut away. It will just continue growing the way it is if not pruned. Any old perennials will do this. It may be to the state where it needs to be taken out of the pot, then cut away the old grown the repot the smaller remaining sections with new soil.

Tips for pruning rosemary When to prune rosemary This can be done as early as late winter and then through spring and summer. Track your order through my orders. Rosemary is one of those great all-round evergreen herbs - a must-have in the kitchen and pretty enough to make an ornamental plant in the garden with its delicate flowers in shades of white, pink or blue. Leave it untouched, and it can soon get too big and woody. But prune it carefully and your rosemary bush will reward you handsomely with years of fragrance and flavour.

Leave a rosemary bush without pruning and in a few years you will have a bare and leggy bush with no fresh shoots. The best time to prune rosemary is in late spring, just after it finishes flowering. After around ten days your rosemary should be completely dry and ready to take down to strip off the leaves and store in a jar or an airtight container. Also if you cut sprigs for harvest while your plant is in bloom, you can use the flowers for cooking as well, as apparently, they are edible as well.

As mentioned before it is a good idea to keep more than one rosemary in your garden if you plan on using it for harvesting, but instead of purchasing more plants why not grow your own from cuttings from the plant that you already have planted in your garden.

A rosemary plant raised from a cutting will mature more quickly than a plant grown from seed, and rosemary seeds tend to have a low germination rate and take a long time to grow. A rosemary cutting will reach a usable size in just a few months, and be ready to harvest much more quickly.

The plant you grow from a cutting will be an exact clone of the donor plant and have the same disease resistance, growth and flavour. How To Prune Rosemary Before embarking on a rosemary pruning session make sure your secateurs are nice and clean, and sharp.

A Light Prune Or Trim Of Your Rosemary If you wish to give your shrub a light or a hard prune the first port of call should be to remove branches that have crossed and those that are dead and diseased. Shaping Your Rosemary Shaping your plant is one of the main reasons for trimming your rosemary.

Hard Pruning Your Rosemary Before you give your rosemary a hard pruning, it is best to evaluate whether to cut it back or if it has become too woody, replace it with a new edition.

How To Harvest Your Rosemary If you wish to harvest your rosemary for some sprigs for your Sunday roast, the best time to do this is just before it flowers, as this is when the flavour of the rosemary will be at its peak. Growing Rosemary From Cuttings As mentioned before it is a good idea to keep more than one rosemary in your garden if you plan on using it for harvesting, but instead of purchasing more plants why not grow your own from cuttings from the plant that you already have planted in your garden.

There a couple of valid reasons for growing rosemary from cuttings: Earlier Harvest A rosemary plant raised from a cutting will mature more quickly than a plant grown from seed, and rosemary seeds tend to have a low germination rate and take a long time to grow. Same As The Donor Plant The plant you grow from a cutting will be an exact clone of the donor plant and have the same disease resistance, growth and flavour. Choose healthy stems that have fresh growth, younger shoots will have green stems that are flexible.

Avoid taking cuttings from woody stems. Using secateurs take a cutting around 5 to 6 inches back from a fresh growing tip.

Gently strip off the lower 2 inches of leaves from the cutting. Place the cutting in water and place in a warm position away from direct sunlight. Change the water every couple of days with room temperature water. Stop pruning -- including harvesting -- in the middle of fall to avoid prompting new growth that could be too tender to survive cold weather.

Upright rosemary varieties can reach 3 to 5 feet tall in warm climates. When your area experiences the occasional freeze, an established plant is likely to survive and look as good as new in a few weeks after some trimming. After a cold snap, the tips of the rosemary turn dark brown and look dry and brittle. Leave the damaged plant parts on the bush until temperatures are consistently warm because it can protect the parts of the plant that are still healthy, farther down the plant.

Cut the stems back to living wood with bypass pruners, cutting at a degree angle. Trim the stems back all the way to the base of the plant if there is no live wood on the stem.