They are trimmed to look like Christmas trees and they do not last well indoors. There are many cultivars if Rosemary and different shapes. But none naturally like a Christmas tree. While it is inside give it the brightest, coolest place in the house that you can find. We don’t know where you live but it sounds as if your Rosemary can be hardened off and live outdoors in future. It won’t be scraggly if you harvest regularly to keep it well pruned.

I agree with all that Floral said, but I'd suggest you find a culinary rosemary if you want to use it in food. While all Rosemary is edible, the oils can be too "piney" in the garden varieties. If the flavor of your little tree is good then it's OK.

Virtually all rosemaries sold in this country are of the same species and there is no difference between a culinary plant and an ornamental :-) 'Garden varieties' tend to be exactly the same plants as those sold as culinary herbs. Not all will have the exact same flavor but any can be used in cooking.

I’ve never made any distinction between ‘culinary’ and ‘garden’ Rosemary either. They’re all the same species and taste smilar enough to make no difference.

Thank you all. My last sentence says I’m in Oklahoma zone 7. I have found In the past they don’t survive as house plants. Thought it was something I’m doing wrong. I made some of the Pioneer Woman’s Crash Potatoes with it and it tasted wonderful. I do have a room in the house cooler then the rest so I’ll put it in the window there. Thanks again!

Sorry, missed your location in your first post. You said you had a friend growing one in the ground so I surmised you could do the same in future. Or is the friend in a different area?

I would certainly give it a try in the ground in a zone 7!! But not now and not with one intended as a Christmas decoration :-) Look for one in spring to plant. The cultivar 'Arp' is reputed to be extra hardy.

What cultivar do they use for ‘Christmas trees’, GG? It’s not a phenomenon here, afaik.

I used to over-winter them in an attached, unheated garage, but one night someone came home late and forgot to close the overhead door and they froze. Heartache - these were specimens I'd been growing on as bonsai for 20-25 years or more.

Rather than trying to help them limp through the winter indoors, why not just set them on the garage floor and cover with a cardboard box to trap the geothermal heat rising through the garage floor. Put a stick or something between the wall of the box and the garage floor when there is no danger of freezing, and leave the box tight against the floor during cold spells. The plant will appreciate that and wake invigorated in spring.

The problem with over-wintering temperate plants indoors is the high temperatures and low humidity increases the rate of respiration significantly, which forces use of a LOT more energy than the plant would use in a cold environment. Combine that with the fact that low light levels indoors limit photosynthesis to the degree it's nigh impossible for the plant to reach its LCP (light compensation point), which is the point at which the plant is making at least as much food during the process of photosynthesis as it's burning during respiration. If it cannot manage that, the plant is on its way down the drain unless/until the trend is reversed. The hitch in that scenario is, the several months of indoor living usually completely exhausts the plant's energy stores long before it's safe to move it outdoors where it can recover.

BTW - I'd also be wary of using the rosemary Christmas tree topiary for cooking. Undoubtedly, those tending the plant pre-POS had a primary focus on the condition of the foliage, so it wouldn't be a good bet the plant is free of chemical insecticides, fungicides, growth regulators, ......

Al

How would Rosemary, being evergreen, survive under a box with no light? Or do you mean to only use the box if the temp is forecast to be very low? Rosemary photosynthesises all year round. How would it cope in the dark?

The only reason I suggested to lift the box during warmer periods has more to do with air circulation and thwarting fungal infections. If the ambient temperature remained between 32-45*, you could keep it covered all winter. I over-winter some zone 8 plants here in 6b-5a under boxes, and zone 7 plants just get set on the floor. Evergreens don't go completely dormant in the winter (neither do deciduous trees - their roots grow at temps down to about the freezing mark, and when temperatures are below about 42*F./ 6*C, the plant becomes quiescent such that top growth is essentially undetectable, even though it does occur. If you cover the plant and temps rise above about 45*, it would be very slightly to the plant's advantage to be exposed to light, but the amount of growth that occurs at those low temperatures is so slight you'd be very hard pressed to detect any increase in node length. Something similar occurs in temperate broadleaf trees. When pushed toward deep dormancy in the fall by cool temps and decreasing day length (technically, it's an increase in the dark period that triggers the response), the plant remains in the dormant phase until it has been exposed to enough chill units to release the plant from dormancy. At that point in time it passes into the quiescent phase with no outward indication dormancy has ended. During the quiescent phase, the plant is entirely capable of growth, but inhibited from growth until/unless temperatures rise enough. The above-ground organs of rosemary simply go into what could aptly be described as something of a suspended animation at temps much below 45*.

I grow maybe 75 different species of temperate conifers and evergreens of various genera and species. Pine, yew, juniper, hemlock, fir, spruce, boxwood, pyracantha, larch, azalea, santolina, cypress, thuja, many others. All over-winter in an attached, unheated garage, and by choice, I've covered the 2 windows so it's dark except when the OH doors are open. Many of my bonsai friends have dug permanent over-wintering pits for their trees. The trees get watered, go into the pits on shelves after they enter deep dormancy, the pit is covered by plywood, and the temperate trees of all stripes never see daylight until the pit is opened at some point just prior to our last frost date in May.

"How would it cope in the dark?" The short answer is, it copes in the dark by virtue of the fact that growth is inhibited by low temps, so the draw-down on energy reserves is nearly nil. As I noted in my post above this one - a warm house greatly increases the rate of respiration while the normally low winter light levels significantly reduces photosynthetic opportunities. Most growers believe that humidity is to blame when temperate plants go down the drain indoors in winter, but what really happens is, the plant starves to death because it cannot achieve its LCP.

Al

I'm amazed. I was going on the fact that Rosemary grows outdoors all year round where I am and I can't imagine it surviving in the dark. It flowers in late winter too. Temps are often lower than 45 and sometimes even below 32.

I'll be specific to Rosmarinus for a moment, even though the survival mechanism I'll describe is widely employed by low-growing shrubs/trees the world around. Part of what you describe re Rosmarinus plants growing in cold environments results from the plant's ability to escape the effects of free air circulation by keeping the boundary layer (of air) intact. The boundary layer is a thin layer of air that surrounds foliage and other plant tissues and acts as both an antitranspirant and insulation (a dead air space is an extremely effective insulator). The plant maintains the integrity of the boundary layer by way of where it "chooses" to grow, reduced plant size, increased ramification (fullness of the plant/compact growth forms), essentially engineering their own microclimate. Stick a thermometer into the middle of a rosemary bush (in situ) in mid-winter during the day and you'll find a temp reading that is often as much as 60*F (15*C) higher than the air temp 1M above the bush. This is a consequence of the interaction of passive solar (heat) gain with the insulative boundary layer surrounding plant tissues.

Now, back to plants in general. It's been shown and widely accepted that no vascular plant can grow at temps below 32*F (0*C), a temperature at which a plant's leaf photosynthesis may still reach as much as 30% of its full capacity. Even at 41*F (5*C) the contribution of growth to the seasonal biomass gain during such hours of cold is negligible. This is why temperatures between 41-43*F (5-6°C) have often been considered as the “zero point” of plant growth and development. As far as I know, it's not yet known which biochemical processes controls that seemingly universal growth limit that holds true for trees, to winter crops, and even plants that grow on glacier fields.

Al