Rosemary
Salvia rosmarinus
Botanical family: Lamiaceae
A Mediterranean shrub of the Lamiaceae family (Salvia rosmarinus, long named Rosmarinus officinalis), rosemary loves full sun, drought, and drained chalky soils. Evergreen, it has flavoured Mediterranean cooking with its sprigs since antiquity.
Full sun
Dry, chalky
Sparing once established, copes well with drought
Hardy (-10 °C)
Overwinters in your zone
Role in permaculture
An evergreen, woody shrub, rosemary gives the dry garden a permanent structure: it forms low Mediterranean edges and hedges where few other plants thrive. Its very early flowering, from the tail end of winter, makes it one of the year's first nectar sources for honeybees and bumblebees emerging from overwintering, a valuable melliferous link while the garden is still bare. Traditionally planted alongside carrots and cabbages, its strongly aromatic foliage is reputed to confuse the scent cues of some pests, including the carrot fly. Needing little water once established, it holds its place in rockeries, on terraces and in dry, little-watered areas, where its evergreen foliage provides aromatic cover all year round.
Good companions
Fix nitrogen from the air (legumes)
Traditional companion planting (benefit not demonstrated)
Poor companions
Opposite soil needs (acid or chalky ground)
Insects attracted or useful
Seasons & availability
Evergreen: foliage available all year round.
Available: January, February, March, April, May, June, July, August, September, October, November, December.
Guidance for the oceanic / temperate climate; it may vary with your region, altitude, exposure and growing method.
Sources
- RHS, « How to Grow Rosemary » (rhs.org.uk/herbs/rosemary/grow-your-own)
- La Ferme de Sainte Marthe, « Réussir la culture du Romarin » (fermedesaintemarthe.com/en/blogs/comment-reussir-la-culture-de/reussir-la-culture-du-romarin)
Nutritional & medicinal properties
For educational purposes. Not a substitute for medical advice. Effects depend on the form, the dose and personal context.
Precautions & contraindications
The concentrated essential oils (camphor, 1,8-cineole) require caution. Rich in camphor, rosemary essential oil is not advised for people with epilepsy: seizures have been reported even after cutaneous use. Rosemary has a traditional emmenagogue reputation: to be avoided in pregnancy at a medicinal dose (concentrated infusions, EO), even if normal culinary use is not at issue. Possible interactions with antihypertensives and anticoagulants at high dose.
In the kitchen & the apothecary
Where to find rosemary in preparations: recipes and traditional herbal teas.
Infusions & herbal teas
Family behaviour: Lamiaceae
In general, Lamiaceae are aromatics (basil, mint, thyme, rosemary, sage, lavender, lemon balm, savory). Their essential oils are reputed to bother some insects, but in a trial cited by Parker et al. (2013), sage, thyme and mint planted near cabbages did not reduce their pests. Their flowers are much visited by pollinators.
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Species & varieties
The best-known species and varieties in France.
Common varieties
Voices of peoples
Paraphrases attributed to their documented sources. Never an invented quote.
Elizabethan England, William Shakespeare, Hamlet (first performed c. 1600–1601) · England, turn of the 16th–17th centuries
In Ophelia's mad scene (Act IV, scene 5), Shakespeare stages the distribution of plants laden with meaning, where rosemary embodies remembrance and the fidelity of memory. It is one of the most famous literary attestations of this symbolism, which rested on an already-established English use of rosemary at weddings as at funerals, a sign that the bond would not be forgotten. Ophelia says, in the Folger edition: 'There's rosemary, that's for remembrance. Pray you, love, remember.'
William Shakespeare, Hamlet, Acte IV, scène 5, texte de la Folger Shakespeare Library (folger.edu), vers 3098-3100.
A verbatim quotation, verified against the Folger edition.