Rosemary for Oils and Cooking are Different

Q. I use rosemary in my cooking, which I purchase from the store.  It is expensive and it does not last very long if I don't use it all. I would like to plant a rosemary bush in our yard so that I can use it in my cooking as I please.  Is there a difference between rosemary bush used for "cooking" and regular rosemary used in landscaping?

Honeybees like Rosemary flowers and these plants flower all season long and particularly profuse in the winter. So put them where people are not afraid of bees.

A. Landscape rosemary works if you want a balance between visual appeal and cooking. Use the new growth that has the flowers if you want it for cooking. If you are serious about a type of rosemary used for cooking, then pick a variety recognized for its oil content.

Landscape rosemary focuses more on looks, green foliage and flower color, rather than oil content About as sophisticated as you can get with landscape rosemary is the difference between an “upright” and a spreading or “prostrate” form. If the new growth is pointing upward, it’s an “upright” form. If the new growth is growing more horizontally then it’s a spreading or “prostrate” form. The prostrate form is a good choice if you want it to cascade down or over a wall but not considered a strong form for cooking.

            Rosemary is a Mediterranean plant which means it likes dry and rocky soils found in southern Italy, Greece and Turkey, rock gardens, non-desert parts of California, but it’s not a cactus so it doesn’t like an unamended desert soil contrary to what the University of Florida tells you. When in doubt it’s always safe to amend desert soil a little bit when planting anything you are not sure about, even cactus.

The oil content in rosemary is what gives it the flavor you want for cooking. The most aromatic portion of the plant with the highest and best quality oil is the new growth containing new flowers. So, if your primary focus in having arosemary plant is cooking then focus on varieties of rosemary with high oil content such as ‘Benenden Blue’, ‘Flora Rosa’, ‘Tuscan Blue’, ‘Majorca Pink’, ‘Arp’, ‘Albiflorus’, ‘Huntington Carpet’, ‘McConnell's Blue’, ‘Irene’, ‘Holly Hyde’, and ‘Hill Hardy’ to name a few.