My rosemary plant has survived the winter outside! I forgot to bring it inside last fall. When the snow melted, I was surprised to see that its still looking good. Its growing in a corner of my cold frame, roots inside, but leaves outside of the frame. Maybe it survived since the soil that did not freeze. Or maybe the deep snow cover was protective. Or both.
9 comments:
I'm envious. I don't know what it is with me and rosemary.I've killed every rosemary plant that I've ever had. Also cannot grow hollyhocks or echinacea. I just threw out another rosemary plant last weekend and replaced it with a healthy young sprig. Wish me luck!
We are in zone 5b and our rosemary and thyme seems has to survived. Same as you...raised bed covered by 4 feet of snow. I think it must of been super insulated under all that snow. :)
That's great that it survived the outdoors in the winter. I have mine indoors at the moment, perhaps I'll leave it out next time.
This is heartening to hear. I am interplanting Rosemary this year, and thought I would have to take my chances transplanting, or let it die off.
That must have been nice to find. Love roasting potatoes with rosemary and olive oil. But like Roberta above I don't have much luck growing the stuff.
Our rosemary is a hoary old potted plant that comes into the house every fall.
Although the persistent snow made this winter appear endless, temps were actually very reasonable. The snow acted as a thermal insulator and provided moisture. Our kale overwintered and is now throwing out new growth (http://www.media-organic.com/march-garlic-and-over-wintered-kale). While cleaning out the beds this past weekend I found several healthy root systems intact. I even found a chard sending up a new stem.
If the soil never froze I'm sure it would be fine. Regular rosemary is fine to zone 8. I'm going to try several varieties this year. I want to especially try Arp and Madeline Hill which are supposed to be hardy to zone 6. They never were in my old garden as I had heavy clay and they won't survive that cold if they have wet feet. But who knows for the new garden. I'm also going to plant some along the foundation which stays more frost free.
I have always brought mine in during the winter. Usually its dead by spring because of the dry house air and I forget to water it. This year I was partly thinking it would be better to just admit I can't overwinter rosemary, leave it be outside, and buy a new plant in the spring. But this is great. Since it likes this spot, I will leave it there. Maybe it will grow into a big plant.
Just as a note to update on this rosemary plant. It died. It was looking so good as the snow melted. But without snow cover we got several very cold spring nights and it did not survive them. :((( Oh well.
I will buy another rosemary plant.
The owner of my local nursery told me that one of the big rosemary growers had a hoop house collapse last winter and so he is unable to stock large rosemary this year. He only had a few teeny plants. I'm looking but still haven't found any big rosemary plants locally.
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