In this article, I will show you how to properly plant your Rosemary as well as a few tips and strategies to maximize their growth and overall health.
Planting and Growing Rosemary For Maximum Health! You’ve followed along and rooted cuttings from your mother Rosemary for new, free plants. You’ve even moved those cuttings onto small pots to start them in soil and get them really growing. Now, it’s time to pot up your Rosemary plants into larger pots or even their final destination.
If you bought a small rosemary plant and it’s in need of repotting the methods explained in this article will work for you as well.
Repotting rosemary plant
When moving a typical small rosemary plant along to a larger pot, don’t go less than five gallons. These are large perennial plants that will outgrow within about two years. The particular plants that I’m potting up in this article are for a client’s patio.
So I’m lining them with newspaper to let the water out but keep that soil in. Repotting rosemary into larger containers is a perfect opportunity to reuse some of that old potting soil that you have lying around. With such a large pot using a gallon or two of the old mix on the bottom is a great way to save time and money.
Place the plant inside the larger pot to get an idea of the depth that you need and adjust your soil head accordingly.
2 Secrets to grow healthy rosemary
Before I pot up this rosemary plant let me share with you two secrets that I use to grow ridiculously healthy rosemary.
- These guys are pretty versatile hearty plant in most conditions but rosemary really excels at a ph of around 6 to 6.5, that is slightly acidic. So if you have it and I always do, sprinkle in about 10 to 15 grams of elemental sulfur to the bottom of the pot before planting. If you don’t have it blueberry or rhododendron dry mix will also work.
- Secondly, rosemary hates wet feet i.e standing in water. But it does like moist conditions. So to ease the transition of replanting, pre-soak your large pot to give those exposed roots, the best chance to hit the ground running.
With your pots soaking for about an hour, we’re now ready to plant.
Time to plant Rosemary
Gently coax out that rosemary plant without tugging on that stem overly hard. Tap it on the edge of a table if it seems to be stuck.
Once out check that root ball for binding. If it’s relatively loose and pliable don’t stress about it and just go ahead and plant it intact.
Simply take your favorite potting mix and plant all around the rosemary. Taking care not to bury any living leaves.
Compress the soil all around it to plant it up nice and snug.
Mulching and Watering Rosemary plant
As with any large pot but particularly those with rosemary inside you’re going to want to mulch to get maximum results. I tend to use a coarse straw with these guys and they always respond well to it. Pack it on good and thick at least two inches.
The mulch itself will mitigate evaporation as well as moderate extreme temperatures. These are very very important things for plants growing in pots.
Finally I always give it a watering from above to set that mulch into place.
Let’s quickly do another one for quick recap.
Recap:
Rosemary likes the soil slightly acidic between 6 and 6.5 pHs, the easiest thing to do is to add about 10 grams of elemental sulfur to the bottom of the pot.
Don’t tug on the rosemary stems to remove them from their smaller pots and always check to see if that root ball needs loosening up.
Add your favorite potting mix around the plant without burying any active stems and compress the new mix down to complete the planting.
Mulch heavily at least two inches thick and water from above even though we pre-soaked the soil to settle in that mulch.
Rosemary is a monster herb. It will quickly outgrow its digs within a season when grown from single stem cuttings or even purchasing small plants at the garden center.
It’s a woody perennial that never goes dormant never stops growing. As such it needs to be treated and grown a little bit differently than your annual herbs. But by observing the steps that we’ve shown here in this article when potting up your young rosemary, you’ll be set up for maximum growth for years to come.
If you know of a friend or family member who’s obsessed with rosemary like you and I make sure to share this article with them as well. Hey, thanks for reading guys. Happy gardening!
