Cultivation of rosemary

Many spices use lesspopularity, than they deserve, because it's quite difficult to get them, and not everyone is able to grow exotic plants at home. But some spices, for example, rosemary, can be grown at home or at the cottage. What you need to know if you decide to growing of rosemary?</ p>

To begin, try to grow rosemary in a room - it's easier than trying to grow a thermophilic Mediterranean plant in the open. One kind of rosemary is suitable for growing a house - Rosemary sweet (Rosmarin officinalis).

Propagates rosemary seeds, cuttings, bush division, but best of all start growing rosemary from an adult plant, which can be purchased in a flower shop,and even better - in a specialized garden center. Adult rosemary will cost you a little more than a small sprout, but much less likely that the plant will die.

Growing rosemary is not a simple process, but if you follow the rules of rosemary care, you will be rewarded with its flowering and fragrance. Rosemary is a thermophilic and photophilous plant, which does not tolerate sharp changestemperature. Therefore, at home, it is better to put rosemary at the window, and if possible at the southern: the more light gets on the rosemary, the more fragrant its leaves (lack of light reduces the content of the plant essential oil).

In the warm season (after the end of frosts)preferably take out the rosemary on the balcony. Return it to the room you need when the temperature begins to tend to zero. For the winter, the rosemary is transferred to the coolest room in the house, but it is surely put on the brightest window. Rosemary needs a cold winter at a temperature of 5-15 degrees, since it is the guarantee of subsequent flowering. Since it gets dark early in the winter, rosemary should preferably be highlighted with a special lamp.

Rosemary is watered moderately: it is harmful for it to dry out the substrate, and excessive watering. When there is a shortage of moisture, the leaves turn yellow,with excessive watering, it can dump them, and stagnant water can even lead to the death of rosemary. Rosemary is drought-tolerant enough, but we advise you not to check the degree of this stability in practice. Excessive irrigation for rosemary is much more dangerous than inadequate.

On hot days, especially if you planted the plant in the open sun, it should be watered abundantly, but prevent water stagnation. In winter, the plant is watered regularly, but moderately. In the spring, as the air temperature rises, watering can gradually increase - this will stimulate the growth of the plant.

To the bush of rosemary was thicker, in the spring it is cut (when pruning leave three or four internodesgrowth of the previous year). If the adult rosemary bare stems, you need in February and March to rejuvenate the pruning, cutting off the shoots at the very surface of the earth. In such pruning, rosemary needs about once every seven years.

Also in the early spring, if necessary, produce transplanting rosemary into fresh substrate. Usually, rosemary is transplanted every two years, butIf he has a dense root system, an annual transplant will be required. For the transplant, you need to take a pot of a slightly larger size with good drainage (this plant especially likes terracotta pots).

The substrate requires a loose, light, water-permeable, with normal aeration, a slightly alkaline or neutral reaction, rich in humus. You can, for example, try this composition: 1 part of sand, 2 parts of turf, deciduous and humus earth.

From March to September, a period of active vegetation lasts, during which rosemary follows to feed organic and mineral fertilizers. Especially this plant needs calcium.

Cultivation of rosemary requires more effort than growing many other indoor plants, but the result is definitely worth it!