Hooray for Arp Rosemary!

[Sunkirst]

I'm a gardener, and I love rosemary, but there are no varieties that will make it through the zone 5 winters here in NE Ohio. A few summers ago I read about a rosemary variety (Arp) that was supposed to make it through zone 6 winters. I've tried a couple of plants every summer since then, but none have lasted through our winters. This past summer I bought a couple of plants, and set them on the south side of a trellis of clematis. The plants did fine all summer, and went into the fall looking happy and bushy. I gathered all of our leaves, and completely covered the plants, and then covered the leaves with hoops of chicken wire (to keep the leaves from blowing away).

With today's beautiful weather, I finally decided to take a peek under all the leaves. Yipee! The plants are beautiful and green, with just a tiny amount of damage to a few leaves. I'm so pleased. My son has been thinking of starting an herb garden to sell to area restaurants, and we would be the only local gardeners to sell rosemary (the plants grow too slowly to harvest much the first year).

So, any other cold climate rosemary lovers out there, try Arp with a THICK layer of mulch.

[Margaret in CO]

Well, we're zone 3a, so we just leave ours in the greenhouse--I don't think they make one that can survive 40 below!

[Dot]

I never thought about needing a hardy rosemary. Here in this part of Texas it' thrives. I have a couple different kinds that have taken over the flowerbeds. In fact, a couple days ago our guinea pig got out of it's outdoor pen and ran under the rosemary. I had a heck of a time getting her out, but we both smelled so good when we did. Of course, my main worry was whether a snake was hiding in there, also.