I was watching TV Sunday
night and thinking that I needed to vacuum because the rosemary had lost a lot
of leaves and it was all over the carpet.
So yesterday, I decided to prune the shrub since it didn’t look very healthy. There were a lot of dead leaves but to my
surprise there were also some small purple flowers. I guess it’s not doing that bad after
all. I could not resist taking a couple
of pictures and that made me think I could write about keeping an herb garden
inside over the winter season.
So here is the story of our little rosemary tree.
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Close up of Rosemary flowers |
As you know we have a
small garden and in the summer we grow our own vegetables and fine herbs. One of them is rosemary. Chris bought it two years ago; it was a small
seedling that we planted sometime in June 2010.
In October it had grown quite a bit and we wanted to keep it but were
unsure if it would survive winter outside.
So we transplanted it in a large pot and brought it in. It spent the winter in front of the patio
door facing south and did not suffer too much except for some branches that
were facing away from the window. Came
summer, we put it back in its spot in the garden and it grew some more. Now it’s in front of the same door waiting
for summer to come. Seems like it’s
doing OK since it's blooming. We also
brought some parsley and chive inside but those guys are not doing so
great. The parsley might survive but I’m
not convinced that the chive will. We
certainly won’t be eating fresh parsley and chive this winter unless we buy
them at the grocery store.
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Close up of Rosemary flowers |
Did you know that
rosemary is an evergreen shrub and that it can become as tall at 6 ½ feet. Ours is about 3 ½. It is drought resistant
and its name derives from the Latin words ros
marinus, which translate into dew of
the sea because in many locations it needs no water other than
the humidity carried by the sea breeze to live.
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Rosemary shrub
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I have to admit that this last picture is not the best but I wanted to give you an idea of what the whole thing looked like.
So next fall if you feel like it, just take a pot, a shovel and some earth and have your own inside winter garden. Freshness is always good in the middle of winter.
PS: I haven't vacuumed yet. I'll get to it soon, I promise.