Rosemary cuttings in water

[fiveaday]

We finally finished the renovation on my old house last year and it was time to sell up. But in the garden I had two HUGE rosemary bushes one grown from seed the other a cutting from the first.

There was no way I was going to attempt to dig up and move such a large root structure but we did want to keep them for our garden as we plan a large rosemary hedge at the bottom, so it was time to get cutting.

Now doing this in November/December is definitely not the best idea in the world but yesterday I potted on 40+ healthy and rooted cuttings.

* All of these came from hardwood not new growth
* I had NO rooting compound to hand
* I just scrapped a bit of the outer bark away in places to reveal the soft inner
* Then we planted some in a cutting mix
* And others just in old beer bottles filled with water

Those planted in the pots with cutting mix rooted on about 40% of the cuttings not a bad ratio for such imperfect conditions but the real star were those placed in water in the beer bottles. Not only did 100% of the cuttings root, but the root structure developed over 3 months was FAR superior to any of those in the cutting mix.

So it's definitely worth experimenting with water only for your cuttings, especially hardwood!

[vixylix]

I love the idea of a rosemary hedge - sounds great!

[fiveaday]

I love the idea of a rosemary hedge - sounds great!

We've got a slightly tatty wooden fence at the bottom of the garden and we thought that rosemary bushes all along would cover it nicely.



And give it a few years to spread and fully cover the area we'll have lovely rosemary scented foxes running around the garden as they continue to squeeze through

[Bill Door]

Best advertisement to show the benefits of drinking beer I have seen in some time. What type of beer was it? More to the point were you the one to drink it?

Well done, good outcome and hope that the move went/goes well.

Bill

[fiveaday]

Best advertisement to show the benefits of drinking beer I have seen in some time. What type of beer was it? More to the point were you the one to drink it?Bill

I thought so, unfortunately I don't have enough good ideas like that to keep up with consumption....or is excess consumption the reason I don't have good ideas.....confused

[Finley]

Yes a great idea! I'm trying to do a similar thing with rosemary (like you I just cut loads of bits and bunged them into a pot until they rooted) interspersed with lavender. Quite looking forward to trying to weave them in together - if spring ever arrives..

[fiveaday]

Yes a great idea! I'm trying to do a similar thing with rosemary (like you I just cut loads of bits and bunged them into a pot until they rooted) interspersed with lavender. Quite looking forward to trying to weave them in together - if spring ever arrives..

Lavender is in the plan for this year, I love the thought of lavender and rosemary around were we walk as I just love the scent given off when you brush past.

What do you mean by weave together? You just planting them together or something more elaborate?

[fiveaday]

One further tip

One other thing I did during the process, I can't say that this definitely helped, I took a spray bottle and misted the tops every now and again.

The thought behind it was to hopefully prevent the tops drying out before the roots developed