Rosemary plants are one of the easiest herbs to grow once we understood what they need.
As a novice gardener in 2015, I could not say the same as I was a serial killer of rosemary plants bought from nurseries, even though I followed their instructions of care faithfully.
I did not understand then the why but now I do.
- Nursery plants are potted in cocopeat. As this medium retains water, it is not suitable for rosemary. Follow soil mixture instructions below by fellow gardeners
- The first thing to do with commercial plants is to root cuttings while the plant is still healthy and green
- Rosemary tolerate sun very well
- Can be grown outdoor as long as soil mixture does not retain water
- Easier to grow from cutting than seeds
- Do not need much fertilizer, use any in mild form only
- Do not need to water every day (soil based)
- As they grow, trim often (cut stem) to encourage bushier growth
- Suffered roots rot easily if roots are constantly moist (soil based)
2018 – Current Update – WORKSHOPS Available for liquid-based herbs methods!
These were thriving rosemary plants grown by fellow gardeners, outdoor, in our natural elements (rain, wind, haze) since 2015.
Without any sunny spot to grow, your rosemary probably will look like mine.
They were transplanted outdoor as there was not much sun in my balcony gardens.
Starting from seeds was more difficult and slower.
Rosemary plants are easier to propagate from cuttings than starting from seeds.
My first rosemary cuttings were from Terence Low’s (NakedGreens group admin) and rooted in tap water.
2018 August 25 – From above cuttings, our plants have multiplied and still thrived today.
TIP – Trim often to encourage new branches. Use leaves for cooking and stems for rooting
How to Root Cutting Tips
Jack Yam, a member of our Facebook gardening group (SG Farming in Apartments) and admin in Urban Farming Singapore,
perfected the rooting method for rosemary and had a pictorial tutorial on how to root them.
Trimmed away the leaves from mid to bottom of the stem
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Support the cutting so that only 1 cm of the roots’ end is in water
Rooting from living plants root faster than grocery cut herbs.
However, if cutting from a plant is not available, grocery herbs are clean and readily available in supermarkets.
Net cups can be used to support mature plants and prevent mosquitoes access to stagnant water.
They must fit well and sealed access with the correct fitting sponge collar.
Propagating a cutting – We observed that cutting root better if supported with only 2 cm of the tip in water rather than resting fully in the container.
Netcups for smaller reservoirs available in SHOP!
The more roots a cutting has, the faster they adapt to the new environment.
For example, from liquid base to soil.
Soil Mixture Tips
If rosemary plants are grown in areas where there is no shelter from the rain, the soil mixture must be customized to allow rain to flush out as fast as possible.
Water by rain most of the time unless there was a dry spell.
The trick is mixing the soil, to be less soil!
More sand, more pebbles, only 30% soil, the rain/ water must flush out as quickly as it arrived.
How to get the soil mix right? Play with your mixes – Mix and match your soil one lazy afternoon, dip in a pail of water n see if it drained in one minute!
Add more pebbles etc if they do not drain well.
Lastly, the base of the pot is best lined with pebbles or rocks to aid draining as well.
Other gardeners also generously shared tips on how to propagate and keep rosemary plants thriving for years.
So my thanks to all of them for sharing.
Rooted in liquid, Grow in liquid (HYDRO, using nutrients)
As fussy they are in the soil and needed the right mixture to prevent waterlogging, they thrived even better in liquid base.
For our indoor gardens in 2018, we are growing more plants (herbs, vegetables, lavenders, strawberries, etc) in liquid base as they are lighter than soil and do not strain our windows.
Hydro Rosemary Journey from cutting –
TIP – Pruning ( cut stems ) will encourage new shoots leading to better growth.
Rooted in liquid, Grow in Soil Method
Sthh Sthh (Trevor) from Plant Community Singapore shared how to root Rosemary from store-bought herbs.
Step 1 – Trim away leaves and used stems for rooting
It took 2 to 4 weeks for roots to show from this supermarket rosemary.
During the rooting process, tap water was used only.
Once roots showed, they were transplanted into netcup with nutrients solution.
Sthh Sthh used his own mix of the nutrient solutions.
His recipe is NPK 21-21-21, a dash of Epsom salt, and a teaspoon of seachem flourish trace minerals into 3 liters of water.
The EC is about 2000.
TIP – Only roots’ end in contact with liquid
STHH STHH also shared how he watered and adjust the soil media needed for a dry loving plant like rosemary and even lavender!
Deep Water Soak Treatment –
STHH STHH – How I water my rosemary and thyme, very deeply. The entire pot is submerged in a basin of water. Then the pot is lifted to drain.
If water does not completely drain in less than 1minute, your medium is too dense for rosemary or thyme.
Time to add some grit. Many options are available – sand, pebbles, perlite, whatever that aid good drainage.
If your water does not soak deep into the soil, the roots of the plants will stay close to the surface, and if so, you cannot skip watering your plants every couple days, which also increases humidity, which is a killer for rosemary and lavenders here in SG.
Deep watering helps plants to establish better roots, and watering will be required only once a week, or twice a week when it gets hot. For suspected fungal infection, or for aeration of soil, you can add a little hydrogen peroxide.
And that is how STHH keeps his rosemary plants so well.
Please remember to only water these plants when the soil is dry.
Agnes Yang on Feb 8, 2016, shared how she root her rosemary cutting (from a live plant) –
Ms. Yang used a syringe to draw a small amount of this and she also said, ” I’m using a diluted seaweed solution.
Cheaper than rooting hormones and works well as continuous support even after potting thorough watering with it”.
SOIL MIXTURE Tips from gardeners
Steve Teh (Plant Community Singapore, Dec 8 2015) – Compost: perlite: coarse sand: rice husk. The ratio is 3:1:1:1. Some limestone powder added in the mix for a higher alkaline levels.
If rice husk is not available, then add more sand and perlite.
Coarse sand is from nursery and not the beach as the latter contained salt.
If beach sand is used, it need to be washed first to rid of salt.
Veronica Yuen (SG Farming in Apartments, Jan 2016) – ” It require good drainage, use 50% perlite, 25% compost, 25%potting mix. Water once or twice a week.”
Terence Low, Naked Greens – 1:1 top soil and other part perlite, pumice or sand will do.
Guanster Guan ‘s soil mix formula, please click on the hyperlink.
All in agreement that Rosemary are sun lovers.
Just don’t love them too much with the watering.
ROSEMARY IS USEFUL!
As a herb, it can be used raw in salads, as its scent adds an aromatic experience to raw vegetables.
In this plate, Chef Donny Tan created a beautiful tomatoes and grapes salad with rosemary.
Rosemary Seasoned Salt for culinary purposes.
To make this, just dry baked sea salt with rosemary leaves and kept in airtight containers.
When bottled in beautiful glass jars, these are elegant gifts as well.
Rosemary salt can be used with baked potatoes or lamb seasoning.
HAIR and SCALP TREATMENT
Rosemary extract can be made by submerging the leaves in vodka.
When vodka is not available, I still preferred to use a mortar and pestle to prepare my herbs for home remedies or seasoning over the electrical equipment.
For hair treatment, herbs leaves are removed from the cutting and pound in oil.
Coconut oil is the best but any light oil is fine as well.
The mixture can be applied to hair as is or warmed for hot treatment.
For oily scalp, we can opt-out the oil, and instead mixed with suitable conditioner and then apply.
Rosemary Benefits
- Soothes itchy scalp
- Reduce hair loss because rosemary oil stimulates blood circulation on scalp, promoting hair growth
- Anti-inflammation properties
- Nourish hair follicles
- Stimulate cell renewal leading to natural healing
- Scent improve memory
After overcoming the challenges of growing rosemary, there is only happiness and satisfaction during harvest.
Rooted herbs seedlings may be available for sale, do contact via SHOP.
Will follow what u did. This is the only herb I have difficulty to cultivate on my balcony 😅😅😅 seeds won’t germinate, buying pots of plants will die in a week, trying to get some roots in water using cuttings, seems they are dying very soon too
I’m a serial rosemary plant killer too. So glad to have your supply to attempt again. So your blog are always useful for reference 🙂 thanks Vic!
Hey guys,
Thanks for the advices in the blog. They’re really helpful! Will there be a workshop for growing Rosemaries? I’ll be really keen if there’s one!
Thanks! 🙂
Rosemary will be part of veggies & herbs workshop. Please fill the form here so we can correspond privately. https://sgstrawberries.com/workshop/
Hi there
I enjoyed reading this page and was inspired to grow some rosemary. I picked up some of this herbs from a store and followed your instructions. It has been 4/5 weeks and there is till not sign of roots. The leaves are still green. I wonder if I am should be doing something different or if this propagation works only for certain varietals.
Thank you
jt
Hi Jeremy,
Usually it would work for any herbs. 4 – 5 weeks is a tad long for rooting as its usually only about 1 -2 weeks.
Thank you
Hi hi, my rosemary, half of it has turned spindly and leaves curling up and yellowing a bit. Would you be able to advise what happened? Maybe I overwatered it?
Also, does Rosemary like direct hot afternoon sun? My balcony gets lots of it but I’m not sure if it’s too hot for it.
Rosemary can tolerate heat and sun. Their natural environment is dry ( not so humid) and hot, so Singapore is fine for them. Re watering, they can be outdoors, with no protection from the rain as long as the soil is very well draining. This means water flush out immediately, not pooling for long.
Hi, do you need to change the water daily while waiting for the cuttings to root?
No, unless the water gets murky.
Omg, I love this blog!! Thank you guys for sharing 🙂 I recently moved to Malaysia from Switzerland and couldn’t figure out why I was killing so many rosemary plants here in the tropics. It’s the coco peat! I didn’t experience this kind of soil before. After changing to a more “rocky” medium, my newly bought rosemary is looking way healthier (after recovering from the slight root damage during repotting). Thanks to everyone who shared their experience, and thanks to the Strawberry Team for putting all the info together and sharing it. Now I’m off to try some lavender 😉
Thank you for your encouraging words!
Hi, love website btw.
Quick question, I recently tried Propagating store bought rosemary in water and suddenly the some leaves started to turn black. Any idea why is it turning black?
Some say it’s due to overwatering (but I am propagating it in water) others say too much sun, and few said it was due to a fungus disease. However I change to water Everyday. Distilled water was used.
Also, does diluted hydrogen peroxide 3% help with preventing damping off and root rot?
It does depend on the specimen chosen to root. For example, if it has been harvested more than 3 days, been in the chiller before transferring to shelves etc. Knowing how to see whether there’s still living cells in stem make a difference on rooting success as well. And that’s why we have workshops.
thanks for your sharing on rosemary – love this great herb and wish to have
more knowledge on how to grow it.
would love to grow thyme – had white spots that kill it when i tried growing them. help!
We have workshops on how to grow them in our climate.
I recently bought a small pot of rosemary from NTUC.
It was green and good. After I left it in the sun for a day. It started to brown and dries up. But checking the soil it was wet. I am not sure if it is drying up because of the sun or because it is too moist and the roots are rotting as mentioned in one of the replies above.
I can share a pic of it. I am an béginner in home gardening.
Hi,
When you bought from Ntuc , is likely in a cool indoor environment compared to our natural heat. Thus, we need to slowly introduce to the sun in stages, not immediately.
The leaves of my rosemary plant are drying up and turning brown/black. I water the plant when the soil is dry which is every two to three days. Am I over watering it ? Any advice would be appreciated. Thank you.
If the plant is a recent purchase from nurseries, the soil need to be changed to more sandy based ( cactus medium) than cocopeat. Read lavenders’ post in this blog. As they are all set in damp, water retaining medium, roots rot may have set in. Hard to reverse no matter what you do regarding how best to water. Best to re-set dry-loving plants by stems propagation when they are healthy.
I recently repotted my rosemary plant when i found signs of root-rot (half of the plant started to thin and brown from the base) to a fast draining potting mix and cut off the half that was dying and the dark roots. Its been a week and I’m noticing this remaining half is also slowly thinning and browning even though i haven’t been watering them (only drained through once when i repotted). I move it under the shelter when its raining and only bring it out to get full sun but every day the plant just dies a little more. What can i do to salvage this half before it’s too late?
Any advice would be appreciated!
It can be hard to salvage a plant that has suffered roots stress from different factors ie. over watering causing roots rot, transplant etc. Stabilise the plant after transplant in shade first rather than sun immediately. If all else failed, re-root from fresh green healthy stems on the plant or grocery herbs cutting.