Q. I use rosemary in my cooking, which I purchase from
the store. It is expensive and it does
not last very long if I don’t use it all. I would like to plant a rosemary bush
in our yard so that I can use it in my cooking as I please. Is there a difference between rosemary bush
used for “cooking” and regular rosemary used in landscaping?
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| Honeybees like Rosemary flowers and these plants flower all season long and particularly profuse in the winter. So put them where people are not afraid of bees. |
A. Landscape rosemary works if you want a balance between
visual appeal and cooking. Use the new growth that has the flowers if you want
it for cooking. If you are serious about a type of rosemary used for cooking,
then pick a variety recognized for its oil content.
Landscape rosemary focuses more
on looks, green foliage and flower color, rather than oil content About as
sophisticated as you can get with landscape rosemary is the difference between an
“upright” and a spreading or “prostrate” form. If the new growth is pointing
upward, it’s an “upright” form. If the new growth is growing more horizontally
then it’s a spreading or “prostrate” form. The prostrate form is a good choice if
you want it to cascade down or over a wall but not considered a strong form for
cooking.
Rosemary
is a Mediterranean plant which means it likes dry and rocky soils found in
southern Italy, Greece and Turkey, rock gardens, non-desert parts of California,
but it’s not a cactus so it doesn’t like an unamended desert soil contrary to what the University of Florida tells you. When in
doubt it’s always safe to amend desert soil a little bit when planting anything
you are not sure about, even cactus.
The
oil content in rosemary is what gives it the flavor you want for cooking. The
most aromatic portion of the plant with the highest and best quality oil is the
new growth containing new flowers. So, if your primary focus in having arosemary plant is cooking then focus on varieties of rosemary with high oil
content such as ‘Benenden Blue’, ‘Flora Rosa’, ‘Tuscan Blue’, ‘Majorca Pink’, ‘Arp’,
‘Albiflorus’, ‘Huntington Carpet’, ‘McConnell’s Blue’, ‘Irene’, ‘Holly Hyde’, and
‘Hill Hardy’ to name a few.