Summer care of Rosemary

by Kathy Purdy on April 15, 2003

in Garden chores,Plant info

Judy, do you keep your rosemary in a pot throughout the summer, or do you plant it in the ground and dig it up for winter? Either way, when do you start hardening it off? How do you go about it, i.e., how long do you put it out the first day, the second, and so on, and where, shade, sun, etc., and how many days do you stretch the process out over? I usuallly wait till May to start bringing it outside, but it is almost 80 today, although, of course, we are to have a “wintry mix” by Thursday, but it did make me wonder what your schedule is. And I finally figured out where in the house my rosemary needs to be in order to bloom . . . so I have several months to figure out where my husband’s gigantic jade plants are going to go!

About

Kathy Purdy discovered the joys of writing in fourth grade, when she started corresponding with a former classmate. She's been writing letters ever since, first on looseleaf, then electronically, and now as weblog entries. That makes you, the blog reader, her pen pal. Her first independent (though frustrating) attempts at gardening were made in high school, though the gardening bug didn't bite hard until her mid-thirties, when she found herself mistress of a rural home on 15 acres. • USDA Hardiness Zone:4 • AHS Heat Zone: 3 • Location: rural; Southern Tier of NY • Geographic type: foothills of Appalachian Mountains • Soil Type: acid clay • Experience level: intermediate • Particular interests: colchicums, narcissus, cottage gardening, NY native plants, gardening with/for children

I'm always pleased when the garden is neat and tidy. That's when it looks like a garden. Nature is plants and the complicated ecosystems that support them. But even the most natural of gardens is an unnatural arrangement of plants. We stamp our will upon the landscape, even those of us who prefer to work with nature. And often, like this weekend, nature stamps back. Maybe it's that dramatic tension between artfulness and chaos that keeps us coming back to the garden. Or maybe it's just the flowers and blue skies and finding two little snakes under a rock.
M. Sinclair Stevens

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