YORKTON - Last time we had tea, we talked about care of holiday plants. Here is one more to consider. You may have received a rosemary plant, lucky you, and they are so lovely because they look like little mini-Christmas trees, and can be used for cooking as well.
They make nice house-plants, and are not season-specific, so they look great anytime. But there are a few things to remember with rosemary. This plant doesn’t forget it’s roots, pardon the pun; by that, I mean that plants have inherent traits because of where they come from. So as we said last time, the poinsettia comes from a tropical climate and has to be treated that way… likewise with rosemary. Rosemary hails from Mediterranean climates with dry soil conditions but a lot of moist ocean air around them. Years ago, we were in the Sonoma Valley, and saw the most amazing rosemary plants that we thought were shrubs. They were large plants, very robust, and oh so fragrant! But of course they had growing conditions that they would love, because Sonoma is described as “coastal cool”, with moist air from the ocean and ocean fogs, and cooler temperatures.
So here we are: now we have our little rosemary plant, indoors in winter on the prairies. It’s not going to get those growing conditions that it is used to! So we must do our best to give the plant what it needs. It does not need a lot of water, just when it is dry, but it would like humidity. I read that we can keep a glass of water near the plant to give it gentle moist air. We should not mist it, because damp leaves could provide the perfect spot for mildew to begin. As a reminder, this plant does not want or need consistently moist soil. As with many plants, over-watering is a greater problem than under-watering. So water it when it is dry.
Rosemary would like a lot of light, but would not like being near a heat register. A cooler but bright location would be best. We have to remember that with central heating, the air in our homes would be considered hot and dry for what the plants would like, so we must try the best we can to find them a happy spot.
To give then an even happier outlook, we can give them a bit of weak fertilizer once a month.
And if we want to snip some rosemary for cooking, they won’t mind the haircut, and will encourage new snippets of growth. Once spring comes, we can take our rosemary outside and let it enjoy a summer holiday. It might need re-potting by this time, but that is easy to do and will give the plant lots of time to settle in before we bring it in again next fall.
If you have a rosemary, try to keep it going, because it is an excellent container plant, and provides interest because of the shape of the leaves and the lovely shade of green. We had a rosemary plant for years, keeping it outside in the summer and on the cupboard by our kitchen sink in the winter. It certainly adapted well!
Now, on to geraniums for a minute: If we brought in some geraniums in pots in the fall, they might need a wee bit of water now, just to keep them going. And if we have geraniums in paper bags or cardboard boxes, this would be the time to take a peek and see if they need a little sprinkle of water, just so they don’t get too dry.
Have you been out in the garden today? The winter garden is beautiful, even in small doses due to the cold. We have a buddha-type statue outdoors, given to use by a dear friend, now gone from this life’s garden…but the statue provides quiet beauty in the snow, and reminds us of our dear friend. Gardens are so special with memories! Thank you to our friends at YTW. Visit the hort soiety at www.yorktonhort.ca and have a great week.
