Collecting an old Rosemary Bush

[Jamie]

Very nice trunk michael. In your garden is the best scenario you can ask for. The ability to prep and take it right. Under no duress or hurry.

ditto. do all the prep work for a year or so and then lift it, get those feeders nice and close to the trunk. that trunk is very nice and would be a shame to lose it!

[Greth]

Will be watching from here, Michael, the one I already moved had no definite ID, so useless to me as a stock plant, but is prob 8-10 years old now, and as I noted, has been moved already once, may be good for feeders. Im pretty sure its Blue Lagoon, from the flower colour, and timing, and growth habit, it flowers almost exactly when my definite Blue Lagoon does. There are probably some rarer varieties it could possibly be, but I really dont think the previous owners would have found them, seems like they just bought common stuff from local nurseries.
Just waiting until I find another before I try lifting it.
Meanwhile I have planted second specimens of my stock plants around the place, should have spares for bonsai soonish, in bonsai time!

[Glenda]

When someone mentioned trying to bonsai a french lavender a while back, I looked at my rosemary and wondered about its potential as a bonsai, also. So now I know!

Glenda

[Greth]

Hard to get a nice rugged trunk on a pot grown plant, easy to get that effect in the ground. Its lifting from ground to pot we are wondering about here. Small cuttings are dead easy, up to about 1 cm branch width, my 5 year old can do cuttings like that, bigger than that I have had no success, but havent finished trying! That was only one round of tries.
I propagate and grow Rosemaries all the time, have done for ten years, but have never had a need to lift one from ground to pot, only the once ground to ground. The one I think would be easiest is the Pink Flowered Rosemary. This self layers very readily, can even spread and become quite invasive, and Im pretty sure it isnt hard to put a layered one into a pot, I think herb society people have told me they do this regularly. For sale purposes, a rugged trunk isnt desirable, so I havent tried myself. The only other difference from the common rosemary is the flower colour, but it has this peculiar habit of layering, easily encouraged of course, just bury a branch and you have a rooted plant.
I think you would be able to ground layer any Rosemary fairly easily, with a bit of hormone, cut back the bark and bury. Maybe I should try this on my varieties over 6 months, and give a report after then.

[Michael]

will start to prep guys thinking about lifting early next spring what size pot u all think the plant not tight in ground now but looks hardy
and into what mix/ what did u try ken

cheers mick

[Greth]

I would take it really gently, michael, something like an 8" pot or a growbox until it shows some new growth, then start thinking about moving it into something smaller. Trim it back well when you move, wont hurt it, and might help.
Ive got one I planted out about 2 years ago after a similar discussion about rosemary in BonsaiTalk, could come up this year or wait another. Not sure yet, unfortunately Im now becoming fond of it as a garden plant, so may not want to lift it at all! I did plant out another Benenden Blue for potential after reading this thread, may have to put one in a really awkward place otherwise Im not going to want to pick them back up at all!

[kcpoole]

I put mine into a mix of whatever Soil I had left.
Mostly Ray Nescis mix with a bit of akadame, diatomite

put it in a box / put that fill fit the complete root ball without having to cut much off

Ken

[Kunzea]

Hi kc
sorry to hear that your rosemary didn't take the transplant. they can be tricky.

I did transplant an upright one into styrofoam then a few years later into a pot. It managed the repots ok, but died when I let it dry out too much. I did learn a lot about how to handle some aspects of the canopy. It didn't show any signs of shooting back beyond the last green leaf. This limits and challenges what you can do with a large specimen with great trunks coming from the garden. i had several branches that were long and straight and hard to style around. I carefully mapped out one side of the br from the base to the green leaves, and attached a wire along the length in that line just to be sure I kept it clear where it was. I then folded the br, twice or thrice, with clear 'snapping' sounds, but with the chosen line never being snapped (a bit like ensuring the 'live vein' of a juniper is identified and not cut when doing some extreme shari work). I bound the folded stem (with leaves still attached, though shorten those parts a bit) to hold it in a place where I wanted leaves for good viewing. After a few months the 'cracks' had all healed over and the newly located foliage mass hid all the folded stems. The foliage can be maintained in thick masses, so covering up the folding very easily. Thus you can 'move' the foliage around to some extent and come up with some great styles. It's just a variation on some of the techniques that either hollow out stems, or hollow them out and insert heavy wire before bending. In the case of this rosemary, the folding is something that works for it to bring a lanky plant with great trunks into a workable bonsai space.

I've also found that collecting the prostrate forms from the garden is very exciting. The shapes of some of the trunks are literati like beyond what you might think of or be capable of producing.

Here is one of the garden collected 'prostrate ones. It hasn't been worked on to select branches etc; there are others, but I'd have to go searching for photos, but not tonight...


cheers
K

[kcpoole]

Nice Kunzea thanks for the info.

Interesting technique re the bending and looks like nice tree gunna happen there

Ken

[Mudgy]

Hi,

I had a rosemary needed to be moved out of the garden bed about 2 or 3 years ago
I couldn't even tell you the species, it's got the white flowers (and tastes good on lamb!)
I was really careful digging it up ( I reckon it's about 20 years old)
It was a bit weak in the pot to start with, but it seems to be going well now. It isnt a bonsai, rather living in this big pot until I fix the rotted sleepers in the big box.

The 3 x trunks are really weak and could break if I try to move it again.
I put the roots & dirt on an old drop sheet, placed it in the pot and pulled out the sheet. There's no way you could pick it up by the trunk(s)

I dunno if its worth having a lash at getting this into a smaller pot.

Rosemary 001.jpg

Rosemary 002.jpg

Rosemary 003.jpg

Rosemary 004.jpg

[Watto]

Give it a go mate. You can't buy age and trunk beauty like that. If it were mine, I would try to just work on the left hand trunk in the last photo. That trunk has great movement, and with a bit of carving would look fantastic. And if you do seperate them, you will still have the other two trunks to play with.

[kcpoole]

Ooh that is so very nice:-)
Well workth attempting to reduce the roots over a few years and get in a small pot

Ken

[Greth]

Species is easy, in the genus Rosmarinus there is exactly one species, officinalis.
If flowers are really white, then you have the very pretty white flowered Rosemary. I think this variety goes back to medieval times, so has no particular cultivar name, but there may be named varieties (Don't know of any myself). If very light purplish, then it would most likely be common Rosemary.
I have a couple in the ground being grown on for future bonsai, and a cascade of the fine leaved Benenden Blue variety in a growpot. This started from a quite large cutting, will keep testing the limits on cutting size!
It does look healthy enough to try moving down to smaller pot, but yep, the trunks do have a tendency to rot a bit and get weak with age.

[Kunzea]

Ken
What a beautiful trio. Do keep working on it. It will be worth it whether you succeed with one, two or three trunks.

Prune back periodically to keep the growth back to where your oldest green leaf is. Once you let them grow out, they won't back bud on old wood. They respond well to short hair cuts (leaving a few green leaves) - more lamb roasts is the order of the day!

I wouldn't hurry with getting it into a smaller pot. Be sure it is stable in the existing one, then you can think about moving it down a bit. This may take a few years. Others may have more experience with the rate at which you can move it down. Look after the old, dead wood so that it doesn't just rot away on you, but becareful of the live veins.

K

[Mudgy]

Hello thanks for the replies - it's been a long time since I was here, and the rosemary is still going, only one trunk now thanks to next door palm fronds coming down in the wind.

So it had a haircut and it should go ok from here





The lovely clear background is thanks to my long distraction from bonsai.
Spare bodyshell for a 1937 Dodge sedan.
cheers