Thanks, floral_uk.

Sorry. I am in southern New England, USA, zone 5a. It must be brought inside in the fall before frost. We are still having some cold nights, so I will likely have to wait another week or so before planting it outdoors. Rosemary is a ”tender perennial” here.

I grow Rosemary in pots... large pots. Your pot appears yo be way too small. Try replanting it in a much larger pot, pruning away all the dead parts, and trimming the green by at least a third. Give it time to grow.

I had Rosemary in the ground around my roses, but they got to be too huge and so had to take them out. The ones I grow now - in pots - are several years old and are all varieties of culinary Rosemary. (Culinary Rosemary tends to be less camphoric in taste.) The one I use most has long, skinny, straight branches that are perfect as skewers for the grill.

I agree that it needs a much larger pot. That pot would be adequate for the first year but it would need to be potted up yearly from then on. I start mine (variety Arp which is cold hardy down into the upper teens) in a 2 gallon pot and then transfer it into a half barrel in its second spring. I only bring it into the garage for the coldest months of December and January and wheel it outside on the warm sunny days ( I have the barrel on a coaster).

My current plant is 5 years old and is probably root bound even in the half barrel now so I will be buying a replacement this spring. They should be available now but the only place I know of that sells Arp is 45 minutes away from my home but only 5 minutes from my office so I guess I need to go to the office sometime soon.

If I were you I would start a new plant ASAP instead of trying to resurrect that one. RIP rosemary.

Let's start over.

Rosemary is *NOT* a tender perennial that needs to come inside during freezing weather. It is a hardy perennial that simply isn't hardy enough to handle a zone 5 winter. It is the POT that is a tender perennial that needs to come inside during freezing weather.

So put the thing in a larger plastic pot, and bung it outside. Then KEEP it outside until about next January.

I have had rosemary outside in a pot in temperatures close to 0F. This was not intentional, but these things happen. The rosemary was perfectly fine. The bay tree lost new growth. The moral of the story is that rosemary is hardier than bay, and both are much hardier than usually recognized.

BTW, though rosemary can handle xeric conditions, it is not their favorite. There is not reason to deliberately keep a rosemary dry.

Thanks to all of you for correcting my misperceptions. As soon as I can, I plan to follow your suggestions. I love rosemary.

I love rosemary too, I USED to be able to grow it to shrub size in zone 7/NJ. Recent years I have had issues with excessive summer humidity and rainfall and some pests sucking the life outta them outside. They are NOT good for indoor pot culture, they want to be OUTSIDE, in the ground. Even if your zone is marginal, in the ground is better than indoors. Trying again with new plants, hoping the ridiculously high summer humidity, rainfall, and pests are held in check this time.

Interesting thread. I usually get a new plant every year, either from seed, or from a friend who has better luck starting from seed! In the late fall (late Nov, early Dec) I take whatever's left and dry and freeze it. Guess maybe I should try overwintering it.

I had a coworker who grew rosemary in her bathroom. With no windows. She is not a gardener and didn't know it was supposed to be in the sunlight and fresh air and it grew beautifully for her in the bathroom. Go figure.

:)

Dee

I had a prostate rosemary that I would add to an outdoor pot and i would bring it in every Fall. I kept it going on my kitchen counter for 4 years and it bloomed in winter for me a couple of times, but this past winter I forgot to water it and lost it.

Thanks again, everyone. It’s been busy here.

I bought a couple more small plants and they are outside.

If you can, try to purchase Rosemary 'ARP'. It's a Texas cultivar which is known to have superior cold resistance (they claim to Zone 6). Rosemary is not without its challenges outdoors in the East, too humid, too wet for too long, heavy, rich, acid soils. Like I said above, I used to have gorgeous ones (NJ/Zone 7) and they did wonderfully in the droughty years, then, Summers seemed to turn decidedly more humid and wet and they got some kind of yearly infestation with some kind of flying pests that must have sucked their sap as leaves turned a yellowish color. I am trying again with fresh plants. If you can, a raised bed is very useful as it allows for fast drainage. Indoors, I think they are just about impossible (along with lavender). Good luck.

Thanks, JP. I once did have a good sized rosemary plant indoors and it did very well for years. I think it failed when I wasnt able to readily care for plants (complicated story), I used to snip it often for a rosemary, fresh sage, EVOO, roasted garlic, mushroom, greek olives, marinated dried plum tomato and buffalo mozzarella pizza I used to make. That was the best pizza. Bertucci‘s took it off their menu because it was too sophisticated for their patrons. I had to reverse engineer their recipe so I could have it when I wanted it. Mine could have used the benefit of a brick oven,

I think I need to make one soon.

petalique, Your sort-of recipe for pizza sounds delicious! I would have tried that if it was on a restaurant's menu. I have trouble with tomato sauce, so yours is especially appealing.

Have you tried a pizza stone in your grill?

Kate, I have a few grills and maybe two pizza stones. I think I need to get a stone that fits the “poor man’s Green Egg” (a red metal egg shaped cooker, forgot name. Need to get a peel as well.

When you Say you have trouble with red sauce, what do you mean? Do you mean the way it can be too much and too wet for the pizza? Are you making it from scratch?

I’m going to guess that you may when you put it on the pizza, that the pizza can become too wet or soggy?

In a wood fired oven or the portable pizza oven that Lars has, the heat is so great that the crust cooks really fast — before pizza dough gets soggy.

Here are some of the things I do to prevent the crust from getting soggy by the tomato pizza sauce and this might be helpful for you.

1. If not using a pizza stone, I put a layer of either cornmeal (fine cornmeal) or lately sesame seeds on the pan before I lay down the pizza dough. This will allow a little bit of air space and keep the bottom toasty.
2. I put a thin layer of extra-virgin olive oil a top the pizza dough before putting anything on it.
3. I don’t make the dough too thick.
4. I pre-cook certain things like sliced mushrooms, green pepper or onions just a bit so that they don’t release a lot of water.
5. I avoid placing too much of anything in the very center of the pizza.
6. I use the fan in my oven.
7. I preheat my oven to the highest temperature – – I think it’s about 540°F.
8. And I keep an eye on the pizza but leave the door closed– I think usually it takes about 5 to 10 minutes. Are usually cook mine on the low part of the oven. But others very so you’d have to practice and play it by ear smell insight.
9. I turn on the robust exhaust fan above the oven oven as I’m cooking the pizza. When I go to consider taking the pizza out, I take a spatula and lift up the bottom of the pizza so that I can see if it’s pale or toasty.
10. When I remove the pizza, and put it on the top of the stove I have the fan still going on high, and then I take that spatula and cock up the pizza so that the steam can vent from the bottom of the crust. That helps keep the crust dry and doesn’t let any moisture or steam condense on the pizza crust.
11. One tip somebody gave me a long time ago making homemade pizzas is that because our ovens are not as hot as a Commercial pizza oven, do you only want to put a small amount of red sauce on it to keep it from getting soggy. This woman pointed out that you don’t really need all that much red sauce. And keep it thinner in the center.

Lately for the past several years, I haven’t been using pizza sauce but I have been using thinly sliced plum tomatoes in the top. First I put a layer of olive oil on the dough, then I put a layer of Parmesan cheese, then I layer on the tomato(you can shake or use a paper towel to get extra water off these) ; can I add a few things like those frozen precooked Jimmy Dean sausage patties cut into small pieces. He’s a much fresher than any frozen sausage or whatever because they are cooked they don’t get rancid (I learned this on test kitchen). I found that I can use garlic powder when I’m too lazy to add garlic or to minced garlic in it actually works out well. I put a little sage powder and a little time powder and maybe some pork cooked mushrooms, black olives and maybe a little bit of basil or basil leaves. I top it with mozzarella. Cook as above and when it comes out of the oven I pile on lots of fresh basil leaves. I love fresh basil.

Sometimes you can make a sort of pizza with pesto and tomatoes and whatever but the pesto is really nice if you like that.

PS I usually add some red pepper flakes to my pizza — zip yum

Here is the Fresh Rosemary, Roasted Garlic, mushroom, (?onion), Olive, Dried plum tomato, sage, and Mozzarella pizza. I have not made this in a while and I am now better at pizza dough.

It has a lot of roasted garlic (I use a short cut in a pan, stovetop).

PS I forgot the name or term for those reconstituted dried plum tomatoes you can purchase in most grocery stores. They come marinated in EVOO with herbs, salt and pepper. I stopped buying them because, as careful as I am, the jar leaks the oil, making a mess in my fridge.

PPS Bertucci’s, a wood fired pizza restaurant in MA, CT, NH and RI used to make a similar (better) pizza than this, but stopped offering it around 2008. They called it ”Lestina” pizza.

I used to drive to their restaurant just for this pizza. Now I rarely go to any of their restaurants. ☹️

ETA The tomatoes I was trying to name are called ”Marinated Sun-Dried Tomatoes”

similar to this;

https://healinggourmet.com/sun-dried-tomatoes/

or

https://healinggourmet.com/sun-dried-tomatoes/

You can buy the sun dried tomatoes plain and marinate your own, or start with fresh plum tomatoes, dehydrate them, marinate them. Really good.

ETA Found a link for home made:

https://brooklynfarmgirl.com/homemade-sun-dried-tomatoes/

Petalique, that pizza looks wonderful!